


when your teeth meet in divinity

by futuredescending



Series: eating their gods [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Not Season/Series 08 Compliant, Pining Keith (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 07, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2019-08-02 16:33:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16308755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futuredescending/pseuds/futuredescending
Summary: Everyone looks to Shiro to be the leader. To have a plan. To always be in control. To keep them safe.And Shiro? Shiro doesn’t see any reason for it to stop there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Many many thanks/blame goes to concernedlily for the original prompt that was too good to pass up. I should probably also say this was plotted out and begun before Season 8, so it won't be compliant, but from what I hear, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
> 
> Title comes from Margaret Atwood’s,“Eating Snake”

“Lance, Allura, concentrate firepower to your left, we need to drive it away from Vesna!” Keith says, reinforcing the directive with _intent_ that he knows they will feel, even when they aren’t fully assembled as Voltron. There’s something instinctual about it all. He couldn’t explain the mind meld connections between Paladin and Lion if he tried.

He can only spare a moment for it, though, before he’s forced to break off his concentration and veer sharply to avoid the viciously powerful energy blasts being lobbed in his direction, the phantom sensation of heat bubbling Black’s paint as the blasts scream by sears across his own ribs, and then Lance is returning with a volley of his own, except that it’s not quite.... He grits his teeth. “The other left, Lance!”

“Whoops, sorry, my bad!” Lance says sheepishly.

The sleek, white robeast is mind-bogglingly fast, its energy blasts deadly, far more so than the last horribly twisted creature they fought only two weeks ago. And that’s to say nothing of the energy it can leech from them if it so much as briefly touches any one of them, a recent and horrifying development they had the misfortune to discover a few creatures back that nearly got them all killed.

It’s been getting worse.

Sustained attack after attack, all over the universe with no identifiable pattern. Each wormhole Allura creates leaves her a little more drained of energy before the fight even begins. Each robeast stronger and faster and harder to kill than the next—

And they’re exhausted.

Lance tries to correct course, but even the sleek Red Lion seems like a slow and bumbling creature next to the robeast, who deftly evades their every attack and rears back a pincer-like arm to deliver another attack.

“Watch out!” Hunk tries to protect them all by taking the brunt of it, but even still, the sheer force behind the next blast scatters them in all directions, producing a chorus of groans as the impact is simultaneously felt by them all.

It knocks the collective wind from their lungs as they drift like space debris. Keith tries to blink away the spots of color from his vision and recollect his wits, but everything is processing sluggishly.

“Geez, that thing packs a punch,” Lance mutters.

“Uh, is anyone else here starting to feel more like a cat toy than a mighty lion?” Hunk asks.

“More like the dead mouse with its throat ripped out,” Keith says.

“Why you always gotta make it dark, dude?” Hunk whines.

“Oh no.” Allura’s alarm seeps past her carefully controlled tone, rousing them from their dazed banter like a dousing of icy water. “It’s heading for Vesna!”

They struggle to right their Lions, paws and thrusters scrabbling through space to reverse direction, but it’s too late.

The path of the robeast’s attack strifes across the heavily populated planet’s gun metal gray surface, leaving a wide path of destruction in its wake. Keith can see the plumes of smoke and the ugly scorch line from up here. There’s no way they’re getting out of this without any casualties.

Shocked silence overtakes the comms as they take in the magnitude of what just happened.

“This thing’s too fast and my scans show it doesn’t have the same weaknesses as the last one,” Pidge says, struggling to refocus their attention on the current problem. “The longer this continues, the more damage that thing’s going to cause!”

Keith’s hands tighten on Black’s controls. “Our first priority is to get it away from the planet, and then we need to cut its power off at the source.”

“...Keith, surely you don’t mean to….” Allura stammers, her voice betraying her dread at the thought of the death of another Altean. 

Keith wants to apologize, guilt already a too familiar pressure ballooning in his chest, but he ruthlessly punctures it. “We don’t have a choice. Too many lives are at stake.” Then, softer. “Whoever they are, Allura, their mind is already gone.”

“We don’t know that!” Allura argues, “We’ve yet to capture one alive. If we could stop focusing on killing the beasts and containing them instead…!”

“We’re barely keeping our heads above water here!” Keith shouts back at her in frustration. “And right now, our duty is to the billions of people on Vesna. Pidge, does this thing still keep its energy source in the same location as the others?”

Black can sense Green reaching out to scan the creature with Pidge’s latest modifications. It’s like a sixth sense in the back of his mind. Like a light switch being flipped, his vision becomes an infrared canvas of electric bright colors. Vesna is a blazing ball of almost blinding uniform red when he turns one way, and when he looks just slightly over….

“There you are.” He spots the robeast’s epicenter of power within its central mass. “Paladins, form Voltron!”

Except even as they start to fly in formation, the beast is suddenly _there_. It stretches out one of its armored limbs towards Red, scraping across its flank to drain its energy as easily as a breaking dam. Lance’s cry is sharp and painful across the comms as Red falls away from them, breaking the tenuous thread of their tightening connection.

“Can’t...can’t really move here, guys…” Lance tries, even as Red drifts away lifelessly, just waiting to be picked off.

“Hang on!” Allura says, as Blue lays into the creature with everything she has, all to little effect. Allura’s sound of angry frustration is nearly palpable. “Nothing’s getting through! That blasted armor’s too strong!”

“I’m coming for you buddy!” Hunk declares with a war cry, Yellow barrels full speed into the creature, managing to at least drive it away from Red, only now the beast has been propelled back towards the planet, drawing it’s focus back to its primary goal: Vesna’s annihilation.

Pidge tries to ensnare it with her vines, but the creature merely slices right through them without pause.

It’s hot in the Paladin armor. Keith can feel a thick, smothering layer of sweat on his skin. For a split, infinite second, the sickening sense of imminent failure threatens to paralyze him.

Patience. Focus. Clarity.

It’s never his own voice he hears when he reminds himself.

He closes his eyes and closes the window to his fear, smothers it into nothing more than white noise. He breathes in deeply, holds it, then slowly releases it to ease his pounding heart. 

There was a time when Keith’s first instinct in the face of a challenge was to reach out and violently break something, most frequently a nose or cheekbone, as he allowed his pent up anger draw him further down a path of self-destruction, but he isn’t that reckless boy anymore.

Black is all around him and through him. She feels like a shadow and a caress. Like a vital component of his very living cells. She wants to pounce, and she tells him how.

“I have an idea,” Keith says, opening his eyes to the stars around him, Vesna, the robeast, and the other Lions, his siblings.

The cool feline power curls through him, rising up to his skin, transforming him. He feels light as the wind, and _fast_ , hurtling forward, gaining speed, until everything around him blurs and dissolves into light.

The robeast turns to him, arm outstretched.

Black’s wings bend, split, and flare out. Reality shifts into something less substantial, as scattered across space and time as the stars. Keith feels Black and himself traveling through the permeable boundaries of the armored beast, following the tendrils of its corrupted power to the source and….

There.

The body of the poor Altean is suspended by the various wires and connections running in and out of its flesh. Its heart only beats to keep the robeast alive, but there’s no consciousness left there.

Keith activates his bayard and drives his sword into the Altean’s neck, severing its head cleanly from its body.

And then Black is out on the other side as the universe reforms itself around Keith and takes full mass and shape once more. He feels heavy, too heavy, slumping in his chair, drained of energy as if the beast had sapped it out of him too. Phasing isn’t...fun. 

“Keith, the robeast’s inertia is still leading it towards the planet!” Allura’s voice pulls him from his torpor.

“And it looks like it’s going to release its energy reserves just like all the others!” Pidge adds. “My readings are already off the charts. That kind of power could destroy half the planet!”

“Not if I can help it!” He doesn’t know whether it’s a curse or a command, but adrenaline surges through his veins once more. He sits up and tries to pull Black around to stop the dying robeast’s fatal trajectory. His girl’s tired though, even as she still tries, lumbering towards the pulsing mech with what little she has left.

Even cut off from its main source of power, the robeast still moves so much faster, maximum destruction programmed even past the end of its life. Keith pushes Black with everything he’s got, grinding his teeth, feeling the strain through his own body until his very bones ache.

It’s not going to be enough. Vesna is going to be destroyed, and it will be all his fault. As the realization sinks in, Keith’s eyes widen in horror, breaths coming out short and shallow. He’s going to fail.

The creature grows smaller and smaller as it hurdles away from him, drawing closer and closer to its final destination.

He braces for the imminent detonation, forgetting to breathe.

But instead of the expected explosion of impact, the blue ring of an opening wormhole appears in a circle of shimmering light, and from it emerges the vast white rounded planes of Atlas.

Not Atlas the Ship, Atlas the Also-Sentient Fighting Mech, whose appearance never fails to leave Keith speechless.

“Shiro!” Lance cries out.

Like fate, Atlas stretches out one massive hand that closes around the robeast and tightens into a fist just as a bright flare of light starbursts between its fingers, forcing Keith to throw a hand over his eyes.

When the blinding light fades from behind his eyelids, Keith lowers his arm. Atlas, intact and unbothered as ever, seems to be staring back at him, and Keith gets a distinct impression of _disappointment_.

Lance whoops. “Thanks, Shiro! That was a great save!”

“Seriously, man!” Hunk adds ecstatically. “You’ve got great dramatic timing.”

“You’re really getting a lot stronger with Atlas,” Pidge notes.

“It was my pleasure, Paladins,” Shiro’s voice comes in through the line as Atlas slowly begins to shift back into its more common ship form. It’s odd to watch, because it’s not like Voltron shattering apart into a pride of Lions, but an orderly Rubik's cube shift of its various parts into a more familiar ship configuration. “We only got the distress call a few minutes ago. I’m just glad we could make it in time.”

“Thank you, Shiro,” Allura says, though there’s still a subdued quality to her voice.

“I take it you’re all exhausted from the fight,” Shiro says with an air of knowing. He’s been in their position, after all. “If you want to hitch a ride, then come onboard.”

“Oh, hells yes!” Hunk is the first to accept. Yellow practically leapfrogs past them in order to be first in. “Everyone’s talked about how good the cafeteria is. Guys, I’ve been dying to try it out!”

There’s a heavy silence that Keith knows he’s expected to fill. Acknowledgment or greeting. Keith opens his mouth, but the words won’t come. He knows he fucked up. The shame of it burns away any attempts at even forced levity. Instead, he curtly says, “Alright, team, let’s rendezvous with Atlas.”

Sometimes you can tell more about what Shiro is thinking by what he doesn’t say. Keith just bites his lip and gently guides Black to port.

 

_____

 

Strange to think that in the time since they made it back to Earth and called it homebase, Keith has never actually stepped foot on Atlas before now, busy as he and the others have been trying to stave off Haggar’s attacks across the universe, making their beds either in their appointed Garrison quarters, the Lions, or on whatever planet was grateful enough to host them. Voltron had been enough for Keith, before. Atlas had been more like a stoic guardian lurking at the periphery of one’s awareness. Solid. Dependable. Maybe a little taken for granted.

Atlas still has its new sheen, and with it, its aura of hope. It even still smells new. The surfaces gleam with pristineness. There’s no corner that’s been left unlit. Like a perfectly curated breed of animal, it represents the very best of Altean and Earth technology.

The inside of Atlas is like a small city with cavernous rooms and a vast network of hallways filled with a hive of smartly dressed personnel who walk quickly and with purpose through them.

The team tries not to impede the foot traffic, but they can’t help the slow saunter of their gait. Everything is so bright and wondrous. Without realizing it, they begin to step carefully, as if their boots would soil the carpet.

Despite being older and wiser now, Keith feels like a little kid again, craning his neck, eyes as wide as a tourist’s. It’s not necessarily because Atlas is so shiny and new. This is Shiro’s ship, and everything about it just feels like him. Keith can’t help reaching out to touch the walls, like he can swipe at the lingering remnants of the man himself.

“Man, Shiro’s really moved up in the world, hasn’t he?” Lance remarks after giving a low, impressed whistle.

“Not so much that I’ve forgotten old friends.”

The team whirls around. Shiro waits for them at the other end of the hall, stance as confident and comfortable as a king standing in the middle of his realm.

“Shiro!” Pidge says first, eschewing decorum to run towards him and throw her arms around his middle in a fierce hug, one that’s quickly reinforced by Lance, Hunk, and Allura. It’s a testament to either Shiro’s authority or Voltron’s reputation that people in the halls merely skirt around them like flowing water without so much as a dirty look.

Shiro laughs uninhibitedly and staggers under their combined weight, but his big arms, both cybernetic and human, wrap around the horde to embrace them back just as tightly. “I missed you too. Now, obviously we need to catch up.” His nose wrinkles. “But you’re ripe. Go wash up and get something to eat. We’ll have time to talk later. You can use the locker room showers on the fifth level, and there are info panels that can guide you there if you get lost.”

They don’t need to be told twice: they disperse and scamper off, eager at the prospect of being clean and well fed.

Keith hangs back. He can’t help taking advantage of that brief moment when Shiro still fondly looks after his retreating former team to drink in his very presence. Absence may be making Keith’s heart over-generous, but he suspects it’s more likely that being entrusted with the care and protection of so many people—the entirety of Earth—has made Shiro even more impossibly handsome, like he now posses an aura as luminous as Atlas. It even defies the rather drab desert colors of Shiro’s Garrison uniform that he clearly didn’t have time to change out of before coming in to save the day. Keith promptly recognizes the new array of stripes that adorn his shoulders. Not Commander or Captain. _Fleet Admiral_ , a distinction that hasn’t been awarded to anyone in over a century.

Then Shiro turns his head and meets Keith’s eyes. They’re still painfully alloy soft, glimmering with equal parts love and something a little more melancholy. His mouth is a soft sweep of a line, lightly tipping up at the corner. It’s his most sincerest smile, almost shy, when emotion breaks through his stoicism.

Some of that heady joy begins to recede the longer the silence between them washes in, awkwardness all too ready to fill in the gaps and multiply intolerably. 

“Shiro, I know I….” Keith tries, but like always, finds himself falling short.

“Keith,” Shiro says in that tone that never fails to drawn Keith’s attention to him like a magnet. “I’m not angry with you. It’s not—”

“Sir, they’re waiting for you and Voltron Leader in the conference room.”

Over Shiro’s shoulder, Keith sees a woman he recognizes as Lance’s sister. Vera or Victoria or something. Judging by her neatly pressed uniform adorned with stripes of their own, she’s had quite the promotion as well.

“They?” Keith asks. “Who’s they?”

Shiro sighs. “Vesna filed a complaint with the Federation.”

“What? When?” They were practically still in Vesna's orbit just an hour ago!

“The robeast’s attack cut through the center of their financial district. No official numbers yet, but estimates of casualties and damage are not insignificant,” Lance’s sister informs them, then, to Shiro, “Sir, we should start walking. I could only get you ten minutes before the budget meeting. I sent the report to your tablet ahead of time. You can review the summary while Voltron's Leader pleads his case.”

“Plead my case?” Keith squawks.

Shiro looks back to Keith and tips his head towards some distant point. “Come with me. We can walk and talk.” He gives Keith a wry look. “It’s the only way I can get anything done these days.”

So they follow Lance’s sister—Valerie? Vivian?—down the hall, and while it would normally be nice to have people naturally part for them as a matter of course, it only hastens the time to their destination, and by the sounds of it, it’s not something Keith is looking forward to. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Federation rules to formally process grievances and seek restitution,” Shiro explains with a grimace. There's a droll cadence to his words that sounds as if he's memorized something despite himself. “If another Federation member or affiliated body causes, either directly or indirectly, physical, emotional, economic, or legal damage to another member’s property, they may be held liable for settlement or other disciplinary actions as deemed appropriate by the council.”

Keith almost trips over his own two feet in his shock. “Settlement!” He knows he’s starting to sound a bit like a parrot, but he can’t help it. Worse still, his lingering guilt is quickly transforming into outrage. “That’s crazy. Voltron was trying to save Vesna from being completely obliterated. Would they rather have had that happen instead?”

“Sir, Commander Iverson just called in. They’ve cleared Bay Thirty-Six for the enemy mech, with your approval,” V-something says as if Keith isn’t in the middle of a crisis in the making.

“Approved. Ready the mech for transit back to Earth and keep me informed of who’s going to be on the analysis team. I want to make sure we have a good balance of skills to figure out what we’re really dealing with,” Shiro says without missing a beat while Keith can barely maintain his footing in all the rapidfire shifts in the conversation tracks. “This is the first time Vesna’s experienced an attack of this magnitude. They’re in shock and they’re grieving. As a Federation member, they’re entitled to the claims process. The rules apply to everyone. It’s how we turned a loose coalition into a united force. Didn’t you read the founding articles? I had them sent to each of you. You all signed them.”

Keith vaguely remembers cursorily glancing through a few paragraphs before his eyes started glazing over and his attention wandered, but he had trusted Shiro and Allura to have crafted something fair and equitable, and so had simply...sped things along to the end. He definitely read more than Lance. “Okay, so it was a lot to remember, and we were sort of occupied with more pressing matters at the time, like, oh, I don’t know, defending the universe from a horde of increasingly more powerful robotic creatures being powered by Altean bodies? Which, speaking of, the mech? You’re bringing the robeast back to Earth? I thought you crushed that thing into a million pieces.”

“That might be Voltron’s first instinct,” Shiro says with a little smirk to drain the sting from his words. “This is the first time we’ve been able to get our hands on tech that’s mostly intact. Finally we can study this thing and get the upper hand instead of always being so reactive. We’re getting sloppy and making more mistakes.”

His fingers clench into defensive fists at his sides. “We. You mean me and Voltron. We’re the ones making the mistakes.”

The worst part, the very worst, is that Shiro doesn’t even try to deny it. He just looks grim as he stops walking and turns to face Keith. “Your first priority should have been to make sure civilians were protected.”

“You don’t think we were trying to do that?” Keith asks, hurt by the implication.

“I know you were doing your best,” Shiro placates, reaching out to touch his arm, a touch point of soothing warmth. “And I know the team is beyond tired. All I’m saying is that there are ways we can improve. I know we can.”

There’s an earnestness in Shiro’s gaze. He’s always so sincere. He always means _we_ even when it’s not his fuck up. Always so reliable and strong, Keith just wants to sink against him just to see if Shiro will hold Keith’s weight along with all his burdens. “You made this look so easy.”

“I have a good poker face.”

 _No, you don’t_ , Keith thinks. Shiro makes it look easy because he was born for this, and perhaps his only fatal flaw is that he somehow things Keith can be just as good at it.

“But right now, we have to deal with the Vesnians.”

Shit. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say. We did all that we could. We...we tried….” He waves his hands helplessly. The guilt surges to the forefront. He can still see the path of damage done, can’t imagine what it must have been like to have been on the ground. “And we failed to stop it in time. Is that what they want? An admission of guilt? An apology?”

“Sir, time,” Lance’s sister reminds him.

Keith gives her a bewildered glare. How does this not drive Shiro mad?

This time, though, Shiro doesn’t even act like he’s heard her, eyes only for Keith, which makes him feel both smug and overwarm, like sitting under a hot light. “Maybe. Sometimes, all people want is to be heard. You can at least start there,” Shiro says, giving his arm a reassuring squeeze before letting go and waving to the doors they had apparently stopped in front of. Damn. Shiro can even multi-task his heartfelt words of encouragement. “We’re right through here.”

Lance’s sister is already positioned at the door, somehow managing to look impatient while maintaining a perfectly neutral expression. Keith swallows and trudges towards her like a man heading for the gallows. At least he can feel Shiro’s presence at his back, a big, warm wall of solid muscle and protection.

An outstretched hand practically clotheslines him. “Here, you’ll need these.” Keith looks down to see two small earwigs in Lance’s sister’s palm. “Automatic translators.”

“Thanks, V...uh…” Keith stutters, his cheeks flushing.

“Veronica.” Veronica arches a brow. “But you can also address me as Lieutenant Commander Mcclain.”

“Right. Sorry, Lieutenant Commander.”

“Come on, they’re expecting us,” Shiro urges as he takes his own earwig and guides Keith in with a very large cybernetic hand to his shoulder, which Keith suspects is as much to comfort him as it is to keep him from bolting.

Shiro touches the panel beside the large doors and they immediately hiss open, revealing a large dark room with high ceilings and a central holographic table that, Keith belatedly realizes, is projecting the rest of the Federation representatives. They’re already well into some sort of conversation about economies and trade agreements and things Keith has little understanding of nor any particular interest to find out.

Maybe it makes him a coward, but he’s relieved to know that at least he won’t have to meet anyone in person. Despite what Shiro believes, he’s simply not very good at it.

“Members of the Federation,” Shiro cuts in, promptly causing all conversation (well, more like argument) to cease. The attentive silence makes Keith’s ears burn as he can feel the weight of the Federation’s collective scrutiny now fall to him. “I apologize for the delay, but I’m here now with Voltron’s Leader.”

“Fleet Admiral Shirogane, Black Paladin. Thank you for your time. We know you’re very busy,” an older Olkari female says, and even though Keith has no idea who she is, he gets the feeling she’s one of the higher ranking members present.

Because that’s another thing he vaguely recalls about the Voltron Federation, nee Coalition. Officially, it consists of ninety-six systems, planets, and entities but far more various complications of alliances and pacts and _coalitions_ within the assembly as smaller governments have learned to unite together to hold their own against their larger counterparts. It all sounded like one big headache to navigate on a daily basis, and Keith doesn’t even want to begin to think about the constantly shifting politics of it all.

“Thank you for giving us the opportunity to address the matter, Councilor Nethra,” Shiro says.

“Now that the relevant parties are present, we will table our discussion of revised trade agreements for the next meeting. Our most important order of business is to address a complaint filed by the Vesna government approximately two vargas ago that concerns the collateral damage that has resulted from Voltron’s fight with a hostile mech,” Nethra continues, giving Keith an even look that tells him very little about her personal thoughts on the matter. “Vesna claims that Voltron engaged in irresponsible, reckless, and negligent practices during the engagement, which has resulted in a large number of civilian casualties and property damage. Vesna requests that Voltron be banned from ever assembling and operating within Federation territory again.”

“What?” Keith blurts out, unable to keep quiet. “That’s insane. Voltron saved Vesna. Without us there, they wouldn’t even be here to make their complaint in the first place!” Well, technically, Atlas saved Vesna from a catastrophic fate that Voltron failed to prevent, but not wasn’t the time to furnish those details. Besides, it would have been way worse without Voltron there at all.

“Keith…” Shiro says quietly beside him. “Don’t.”

“Black Paladin,” Councilor Nethra says, her voice a little more sharp. “There is a protocol to these proceedings. You will not speak out of turn. I am merely reciting Vesna’s request for the assembly records. The Federation has yet to decide on a judgement.”

“I...apologize,” Keith manages to bite out, still seething, but knowing he has to tread more carefully. “I’m afraid the battle is still fresh in my mind, but respectfully, Federation members, As Paladins of Voltron, our only goal is to defend the universe and protect its people. Our enemy is still out there and they have no sense of decency, no line they won’t cross. We’ve seen that in the creatures they’ve used to attack us. Voltron has managed to defeat every beast so far, but it’s getting harder. And while it’s the most powerful weapon in the universe, its Paladins are still...we’re still learning. We’re not perfect.” He swallows. “I am deeply sorry for what Vesna has lost and for what Voltron failed to prevent, but their demands would leave the rest of the universe defenseless. None of you would even be here without Voltron. We’re trying our best.”

He dares to sneak a glance at Shiro, but Shiro is looking straight ahead, brows pinched, expression troubled. Great. He probably just stuck his foot in it again, and this time he wasn’t even trying to stir the pot.

“Black Paladin, while your...candor...is to be respected,” Councilor Nethra says, “It is the Federation’s duty to discuss and decide whether Vesna’s complaints have merit, and if so, what we should do to address those concerns.”

“Is that all you have to say?” comes an angry voice. Another face comes to the foreground, hovering over them and bearing the telltale features of the Vesnian race: long ears, large eyes, twitchy nose, lightly furry. Hunk said they looked like hares and now Keith can’t unsee it. “‘You did your best’?”

“Representative Varys, please...” Councilor Nethra begins, to no avail.

“Many of my people lost their loved ones today!” Varys shouts, his voice booming around the room and causing Keith to flinch. “You inflict these traumas upon us and then you don’t even have to stick around to deal with the consequences! If the Federation does anything less than Vesna demands, it is because its leaders are clearly biased, as is evident by the Federation’s very namesake!”

There are a few other mutterings. Well, it’s really more of a series of growls, squeaks, and gurgles, but the automatic translation is piped into Keith’s ear nearly simultaneously:

“Agreed!”

“I always thought so too!”

“Not everyone needs Voltron to protect them!”

“We need a name that’s more inclusive!”

“Those are baseless accusations,” Councilor Nethra says sharply, cutting through the din. “And more importantly, they are irrelevant to our current discussion. If you wish to make a formal proposal to change the official name of the Federation, you will have to do so at a separate time and go through the proper procedure to file the motion.”

Judging by the mutterings that produces, Keith is pretty sure one’s already in the making.

“Councilor Nethra, Representative Varys, and everyone else who has assembled here today, if I may make a suggestion that will hopefully be acceptable for the time being,” Shiro speaks up, his voice like a beacon that hones everyone’s attention and draws it back onto himself. It’s an enviable skill. “Both parties have made very good points.”

Keith grits his teeth to keep from scoffing.

“Voltron is a powerful weapon that has done a significant amount of net good in the universe. I may be biased because I have been in the Black Paladin’s position, but I know better than everyone in this room, current Black Paladin notwithstanding, how much good Voltron can still do for us. And while Voltron could not prevent the damage and loss that Vesna must now recover from, we cannot change the past. However, going forward, we can minimize the possibility of it happening again.”

Councilor Nethra tilts her head. “What do you propose, Fleet Admiral?”

“The Paladins of Voltron are mostly fairly young by Earth’s measurements of time and would be the first to admit they don’t have the decapheebs of experience that would be expected of seasoned warriors. Most of them were still junior cadets in the Galaxy Garrison before they became Paladins.” Shiro finally looks at him with a mixture of emotions Keith can’t fully place. Pride mixed with regret is probably the closest. “The current lineup of Paladins hasn’t even had the chance to properly bond together as a team. I propose that Voltron be temporarily decommissioned until its Paladins can undergo more extensive individual and team training, followed by proper assessment. Only upon the Federation’s approval will Voltron be allowed to operate once more.”

It sets off a round of contemplative murmurs and snide remarks, everyone trying to talk at once to have their say. For several seconds, Keith can only stare at Shiro in shock, because _what the hell_. “You’re proposing to _ground_ us? That’s ridiculous!”

“ _Temporarily_ ,” Shiro stresses, staring at Keith like he wants to will Keith to understand, or to at least shut up about it for now. “Until the Federation deems you’re fully qualified—”

“The Lions chose us to fly them. Not anyone else. That’s qualification enough,” Keith argues, his voice rising above the general noise and drawing more than a few disgruntled looks.

“Well, not everyone in the Federation believes in the higher authority of some questionably sentient robot lions,” someone says bitterly, and Keith can’t be bothered to find out who. He’s too busy being caught in a battle of silent wills against Shiro.

“Keith, I’m trying to help you!” Shiro hisses. “It’s a decent compromise.”

“It’s bullshit!” Keith spits out. “What are we supposed to do when one of those creatures attacks again? Because there will be another one.”

“Atlas can handle any attacks in the interim,” Shiro answers confidently.

“Atlas doesn’t have the agility of Voltron.”

“She’s getting there,” Shiro says. “She can handle the creatures.”

“Fleet Admiral Shirogane has an interesting proposal,” says Councilor Nethra. “The assembly will vote on it now. A simple voice vote should do. Those who vote in favor?”

A prompt chorus of yay’s drown out the room. Keith glares at their imperious translucent faces like they’ve all betrayed him.

“And those who do not?” is met with a significantly smaller vocal response, though not as small as Keith would have liked, even if Varys’s dissent is the loudest and most piercing of all.

“It is decided,” Councilor Nethra says. “Fleet Admiral Shirogane, your proposal is accepted. Are we correct in assuming Voltron will return to Earth to commence training with your Garrison?”

“That would be correct, Councilor,” Shiro says.

“Then all further matters concerning Voltron and its relation to Vesna is hereby resolved. Representative Varys, your government can apply for the federal funds necessary to help your planet rebuild. Now, is there any other business on today’s agenda?”

More grumblings, but nothing that actually solidifies into another topic for debate.

If he didn’t know better, Keith would think a look of relief briefly flickers across Councilor Nethra’s expression. “Then today’s assembly is adjourned.”

As soon as the holographic display powers down and the ambient lights turn back on, Shiro slumps against the control panel like the whole meeting took everything he had. The fading lights from the panel carve out deeper shadows in a face leaner than it had been when Shiro first crashed on Earth after his year-long imprisonment, after what he had thought was Shiro when he seemingly returned from the dead after their showdown with Zarkon. For a brief moment, Keith is concerned, is about to say something, but then he remembers all over again why he’s nearly shaking, too keyed up from the battle, and now this, that he starts to pace angrily around the circular room.

“That went well,” Veronica comments from her place by the door. “It will at least take some of the pressure off for awhile.”

“I’m sure Varys will have something else to complain about tomorrow,” Shiro says evenly with only a wry twist to his words that always invited everyone who heard it to be a part of the joke. He betrays nothing of that bone deep exhaustion Keith had so briefly glimpsed, though he does rub the back of his neck as if to soothe some aching muscles there. “In the meantime, let’s earmark 15% of Earth’s contributions for Vesna’s rebuilding efforts. That’ll keep things quiet for a little while.”

“Noted. I’ll update the budgets for our meeting at sixteen hundred.”

Finally, Keith can’t take it anymore. “You could have warned me!” he snarls at Shiro. “Instead, you hung me out to dry.”

Shiro straightens, and once again Keith is reminded of how sheerly physically intimidating Shiro can be. “I needed your reaction to be genuine in order to convince the assembly that this option would be sufficiently punitive as it was beneficial.”

“Beneficial? How the hell does this benefit anyone? You _grounded_ us. You did exactly what they wanted.”

“No,” Shiro says calmly, but Keith can see the tightening in his jaw that betrays his growing frustration. “I made sure they didn’t get what they and many others wanted, which was to have Voltron banned permanently. We had to give them something, Keith, or the idea would have spread like a virus. This was the only option. I was trying to protect you and the team. You don’t make it easy!”

By the end of his reply, Shiro’s voice has risen considerably, something that happens so rarely that Keith is a bit shocked by it. Shiro seems to realize this at the same time because he hunches in on himself once more. “...I’m sorry, Keith. I didn’t mean to shout.”

“No. I’m sorry,” Keith says, feeling...well...guilty. More guilty. He’s just racking up the guilt points today. What a shitty day. “I know you’re trying your best to help us. I’m sorry I accused you of those things. It’s just...there was a time when people were grateful to see Voltron. And now it’s just...everything’s changed somehow. Our best is no longer good enough. Do you really think that about me? That I’m so bad at leading the team, I need remedial training?”

Shiro sighs. “That’s not what I meant. You’re a good leader, Keith, and I’m glad it’s you in Black. But I wasn’t lying back there. It’s always been one crisis after another since the day we left Earth. You and the current team might have forged your bonds in fire, but you also just haven’t had the time to run so many boring, tedious basic drills and simulations that operating Voltron as one being becomes muscle memory.”

“I hated those drills,” Keith grumbles.

“I know.” Shiro smiles wistfully. “But they exist for a reason, so that the next time you’re in Black, piloting her is as natural to you as breathing. You are the head of Voltron. You need to lead by example most of all.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Keith admits. He can see Shiro’s point. The team certainly got a long better now than they had at the start, but still have a long way to go. There’s just never been any time. Until now. “It’ll be nice to have some downtime. And I think Lance, Pidge, and Hunk really miss spending time with their families. Sometimes I forget about that.”

“Tell you what,” Shiro says, and suddenly he’s so much closer without Keith having noticed. For such a big man, Shiro can move as quietly as a cat. “One day, you and I are going to take the bikes out for a ride, just like old times.”

“I’d like that.” Keith smiles at the prospect. “I’m totally gonna kick your ass now, pen pusher.”

Shiro smirks. “Oh, we’ll see about that. I’m not quite as soft as I may look now.”

Shiro, of course, doesn’t have a spare ounce on him. Every line and angle of his body speaks to warrior stance, strength, and skill, from his broad shoulders and powerful chest to the thick muscles in his remaining arm and undoubtedly rock hard abs beneath that ugly uniform.

Keith needs to stop thinking about this right now or he’s going to embarrass himself. But before he can reintroduce moisture back into his mouth to issue a suitably smart ass reply, Veronica intrudes on their moment yet again.

“Sir, the budget meeting?”

Shiro looks like he regrets the interruption as much as Keith does, but probably for different reasons. “Duty calls,” he says. “Maybe we can do dinner with the team later? I don’t think I’ll be too late tonight.” Though he doesn’t look entirely sure about that.

“That would be nice,” Keith says, because it’s true. The one silver lining to this clusterfuck of a situation is that he’ll get to see more of Shiro now. Probably. Hopefully. If he locked Veronica in a closet somewhere.

“It’s good to have you back,” Shiro says, reaching out to touch him again, and then he surprises Keith altogether by pulling him into a hearty embrace that he’s maybe a little too quick to sink into, fingers clinging to Shiro’s back. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Keith allows himself to say, hating how needy he sounds and how good Shiro smells. Oh God, he still hasn’t showered and feels pretty gross now that he thinks about it. He must reek. And Shiro is voluntarily subjecting himself to it without complaint.

Grossness aside, he’s still reluctant to let Shiro go, but eventually has to when Shiro draws back and shifts back into bullet-speed dialogue with Veronica as they power-walk out of the room to their next meeting.

Maybe that’s what he can do to make their enforced time out go by a bit faster: cling to Shiro like a barnacle until he’s so annoyed with Keith, he pushes the assembly to return Voltron to duty as soon as possible.

He’d certainly enjoy trying, at any rate.


	2. Chapter 2

After a quick shower, Keith finds the team lounging in Atlas’s spacious mess hall with its ergonomic seating and panoramic view of the whorls of galaxies around them, a decor theme that’s pervasive throughout the ship. No wonder why the waitlist to be assigned to Atlas’s crew is so long.

The team takes the news of their enforced downtime and training commitments with mixed feelings and token protests, but Keith suspects that ambivalence stems more from feeling bad on his behalf rather than the situation itself. Even Allura, who Keith thought would at least react to the notion of anyone attempting to assert control over her Lions, is curiously placid. As predicted, Lance, Pidge, and Hunk almost immediately launch into a lively discussion about seeing their families and eating a home cooked meal again.

“Though, I gotta say, the food here? Almost lives up to the hype,” Hunk judges, which, coming from him, is high praise indeed. “I mean, I could see some room for improvement and plan on leaving a few notes for the cooks, but kudos to Shiro for leaving no detail overlooked.”

“Keith,” Allura says quietly to him when the others are fully immersed in a discussion on the merits of food goo-based meals versus the Garrison’s Taco Tuesdays, “If I could have a word.”

“Of course,” Keith says, frowning. “What is it?”

“Are you alright?” Allura asks right out the gate, but then, she’s always been the most emotionally developed of them all. “I know it wasn’t easy to have to face down the Federation assembly like that without preparation. My minor dealings with them as it is are enough to make me want to go back to sleep for another ten thousand years.”

Despite the situation, Keith laughs ruefully and rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Shiro shielded me from the worst of it, even though I can’t begin to imagine what that would be like. It’s just that...sometimes I miss how things used to be when it was just us underdogs and this crazy idea to take on the Galra Empire. Weirdly enough, in some ways, that was easier.”

Allura smiles sympathetically. “I understand what you mean. In war, there’s a common enemy and the goals are often rather clear cut. Peacetime will always be more challenging because everything is just the opposite.”

“It’s all so much bigger and complicated now,” he admits, sinking down further into the cushions, which were actually really comfortable. “And all I want to do is just help people. Not have to worry about the optics or whether I made some breach of protocol or whatever. Trying to keep track of all that is exhausting. I don’t know how Shiro does it. It’s not like he really ever liked this sort of thing either. He used to complain about filling out those one-page assessment reports he had to make for the cadets, and they were multiple choice.”

“Perhaps this break will give us all some time to adjust to our new reality. We’ve never really taken the time to absorb everything that’s changed. But you know, none of this would have ever happened if it hadn’t been for you and the rest of team. It was your bravery and courage and skill that brought us here.”

“Do you regret it now?” Keith jokes.

“Never,” Allura answers sincerely. “It’s a shame others’ memories are so short lived.”

Her unshakable confidence in him does, somehow, make him feel a bit better. His team still stands behind him, who cares what anyone else says? “Is this really what you wanted to talk about? Cheering me up?”

“Ah, well. Not quite,” Allura says with an air of diffidence before steeling her shoulders in determination. “I was wondering...since we’ll have a small break before our training is set to commence, if I could use that time to visit the Altean colony. I know Romelle has been worried. Now that we know what’s powering the robeasts, I can’t help but think the worst has happened.” 

So that explains her earlier behavior, not that it wasn’t entirely understandable, because the worst, in this case, would be Haggar having found the hidden colony and was making use of the Alteans just like Lotor, but infinitely worse: hollowing out their very quintessence but keeping them as barely living shells in order to power more of her twisted creatures. “That’s not something you should be doing alone.” And certainly not without the Lions.

“I won’t be,” Allura assures him. “I’ll have Coran and Romelle. I can’t ask the other Paladins to sacrifice the precious little time they have with their families. Besides,” she adds as if she were reading his mind, ”we’re barred from operating our lions for missions right now.”

“Then I’ll come with you,” Keith insists, because he still feels terrible about what he had to do in their earlier battle, how despondent Allura had been. “You won’t be taking me away from any family.”

She arches a knowing brow and gently asks, “Are you certain about that?”

He doesn’t blush, but it’s a near thing. He thinks about what he had been looking forward to when they got back to Earth, but quickly cuts off the line of those thoughts before they threaten to make him waver in his decision. It’s like Shiro said: duty comes first. He can’t let Allura do this alone.

“I think Shiro would tell me to do this too. Besides which, it could finally give us a clue as to where Haggar is. I’m tired of always reacting to the latest creature she throws at us. I’d rather bring the fight to her.”

He can see the moment where Allura relents, her shoulders ease, and a softer, pleased smile curls at her mouth. “Then, thank you, Keith. I would appreciate the company very much.”

“...Uh, well, you may not want to be thanking me yet.” Keith grimaces, recalling their initial prolonged trip back to Earth. “The wolf’s coming too.” He still refuses to accept the name Kosmo, despite everyone on the team having apparently overruled him, including the creature in question.

“What?”

Judging by the expression on Allura’s face, he might as well have announced he was in love with Haggar. “Look, I had to leave him for too long already. He’s acting out! He escaped from his caretakers like twenty times so far and Commander Iverson’s threatening to ban him from the Garrison. I have to take him with me.”

Allura’s face goes through a series of somewhat amusing contortions, not that dissimilar from the stages of grief, before she sighs and bows her head in defeat. “Very well. I suppose he’s also added protection.”

“Exactly,” Keith says, letting himself feel one glorious moment of relief before remembering something that makes him inwardly wince. “But, uh, fair warning: he’s been, uh, acting....the caretakers think it’s his species’ mating season right now, so...that’s going to be a thing.”

The dismayed tone in Allura’s voice could probably be heard throughout the entire cafeteria. “ _What?_ ” 

 

_____

 

Keith gets the privilege of being on the bridge next to Shiro when Atlas makes the jump back to Earth and it takes him awhile to get over the fact that he’s on an honest to God spaceship. Not only is Atlas the youngest battle cruiser class ship in the universe, it’s so... _futuristic_ , is the only way Keith can describe it. There’s something about Atlas that the Galra, their Lions, or even the Castle doesn’t have that stupefies him and fills him with childlike giddiness, and only belatedly does Keith pinpoint what that difference is: human imagination. Atlas represents all the fantastic and wondrous visions he he'd conjured as a lonely child caught up in sci-fi movies and books.

And if Atlas is the wish fulfillment spaceship of his childhood fantasies, then her admiral is...well, a wish fulfillment of another, much more adult one, especially in that particularly form-fitting flight uniform. Shiro certainly cuts an impressive and so very chiseled profile as he stands behind Atlas’s central command station like he was destined to be there, nothing but calm, cool, and collected, despite the fact that operating Atlas is a far more complex affair than piloting Black. The ship's commanding crew sits on the bridge around him, awaiting his orders to control the engines, thrusters, shields, comms, and nav.

No, it’s not like piloting Black, but maybe it’s a little like being the head of Voltron, Keith thinks. Issuing orders, leveraging individual strengths at key moments, leading others in perfect coordination. Keith still remembers how it felt with Shiro as Voltron’s leader, when, in the heat of battle, it was like they were all one being, living extensions of Shiro’s will. How he would no sooner feel the warm impression of Shiro’s thoughts like the midday sun on his skin before he’d be carrying out that desire through Red, Voltron’s right hand, trusting Shiro implicitly and being trusted in return.

Remembering that time never fails to bring with it a melancholy longing for what was, but, as he has well learned by now, you could never go back.

Keith grimaces and straightens, putting more effort into facing forwards to the large swaths of space through the view screens before them. The bridge is buzzing with activity as Shiro’s crew call out readings and acknowledgements of the commands they're issued in return, until finally, Veronica calls out, “Ready to jump, Admiral.”

It then occurs to Keith (belatedly, always too belatedly, for God’s sake) that Allura isn’t here and has been away from Atlas for as long as Keith, so not even her lingering quintessence could have done this, so how the hell did Atlas even wormhole to Vesna in the first place? And how were they going to wormhole back to Earth?

The answer comes soon enough when Shiro places his cybernetic hand across a flat panel on his station and just...lights up, like an avenging angel.

It begins with the cool light blue glow in his arm pulsing brighter and brighter until Keith can’t look at it head on, so he shifts his gaze up to Shiro’s face and is genuinely unsettled by the bright light flaring from Shiro’s eyes, completely obscuring his irises. Soon the blue light spreads out across the entire bridge like geometric veins, encompassing the entire ship. Keith feels something _move_ beneath his feet, like a living creature stirring from sleep, and then a large shimmering blue wormhole opens ahead of them.

A wormhole that Shiro made using Altean technology that not even most Alteans could.

“Holy shit,” is the first thing that comes out of Keith’s mouth when he can pick his jaw off the floor. “How are you doing this?”

“I don’t know,” Shiro says absentmindedly, his mind clearly focused on more pressing matters. “Atlas just shows me the possibilities, and it happens. Really cuts down on the commute time, doesn’t it?”

Keith can’t argue with him there. The best of Altean and Earth hybrid technology. Shiro looks formidable, _forbidding_ like this. Keith wants to reach out and touch him just to be contrary, but more out of wanting to reassure himself that Shiro is still human. So he does, because he’s never been all that great at curbing his impulses outside of Voltron.

It doesn’t break Shiro’s concentration though. He just looks over at Keith with those freaky eyes and smiles like a deity accepting worship as Atlas enters the wormhole.

There’s a small but jarring lurch as they literally break through space and time, and then just as quickly it stops and the abstract shimmering drops around them like a shattered illusion to reveal a patina of familiar constellations and an even more familiar blue planet.

“Welcome home, Atlas,” greets Ground Control over the comms.

“Thank you, Ground Control. Always glad to come back down to Earth,” Shiro says as his hand falls back to his side and the light fades from his eyes, returning them to their usual serene carbon gray. “Lieutenant Commander, ready for entry into atmo.”

“Copy that, Admiral.”

Shiro is paler than before, shaky but hiding it well. It must take a lot of him, interfacing with Atlas. Keith can’t help stepping closer to Shiro, ready to support him if necessary. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Shiro says quickly, straightening in a blink of an eye, back to being the strong, proud leader of Earth. If Keith didn’t know better, he would have wondered if he'd imagined those last few seconds. “Still learning with her. There’s a few quirks that need ironing out.”

It’s a little intimidating to think about if Keith lets himself dwell on it for too long. If Shiro can do even this much already, Keith can’t imagine what he’ll be able to do when he unlocks all of Atlas’s secrets. There's something uneasy about it, rather than reassuring.

So, Keith doesn’t think about it. He pushes away the thought like it never existed at all.

 

_____

 

Admittedly, it’s been a little while since Keith was last on Earth, but the changes that have happened since their final battle with Sendak and their first of many battles with the way-too-upgraded robeasts have been nothing short of mind-boggling.

The Garrison base itself had at least doubled in size during its reconstruction, no longer content to be an obscure series of barracks and hangars nestled among the desert canyons, it now sports a whole multi-tier ecosystem of production and maintenance of its new technologies. Whereas before, Earth barely had enough resources to cobble together a few short-range fighters, now there is a fleet of space-ready ships as far as the eye could see when Keith looks out the observatory windows. Different classes too, from sleek and powerful battle cruisers to various fighters and cargo ships. All born from the same powerful Altean-Earth hybrid technology, Shiro tells him as they move through the primary subterranean hangars and Keith risks whiplash from turning his head so quickly just trying to take it all in. 

“That’s what we were lacking,” Shiro says, “We didn’t have enough energy, but now with Balmeran crystals, Olkari engineers, and Commander’s Holt own modified designs, we’ve been able to do some amazing things. You think the ships are impressive? Just wait until you see our new weaponry.”

“How did you get so much done in such a short time?” Keith can’t help asking.

“We were only ever limited by our resources, not our imagination nor our capability. Now we’ve ensured that Earth will never get invaded again,” Shiro says with the unshakeable conviction of someone who has made the universe bend to his wishes through sheer force of will.

It’s difficult to remember on this side of victory, but there was a time when the odds were heavily stacked against them. Four naive cadets and an escaped POW trying to liberate an oppressed universe from the most technologically advanced and war-like race in existence. Now Keith looks at Shiro, who is battle marked and steely down to the very core, so very _different_ than from even a year ago, and doesn’t think he ever wants to find out what it would be like to see this man opposite him in a fight. Not even the evil clone version of him compared to this.

The Garrison R&D team now gets a whole quadrant of the base in which to play, and in the manner of scientists allowed to run wild with nearly unlimited funds and virtually no restrictions, the very atmosphere of the place is, well, a little too close to the stereotype of _mad scientist_. It’s like if Hunk and Pidge’s previous lab on the Castle had grown exponentially without the constraints of being on a spaceship and having to work with, well, ten thousand year old tech. There’s stuff everywhere in various stages of construction, things that Keith can recognize or give a relatively educated guess at and others that he couldn’t even begin to fathom. He almost reaches out to poke at something that curiously resembles a sort of gatling gun before remembering at the last second how bad an idea that would be, given how much Shiro had gone on about their new advanced weaponry.

Well, _is still_ going on about it.

“...we’ll have doubled our efficiency and production outputs within the next six months,” Shiro continues, oblivious to (or politely ignoring) Keith’s momentary (well, maybe slightly more prolonged than that) slip in attention. 

Keith grins brightly at him. “That’s really great, Shiro.” Because he can get the gist of it well enough.

The point is soon hammered home when they enter a mezzanine that overlooks the rest of the room. Although the term _room_ is somewhat of an understatement. More like an entire manufacturing floor that's as big as the hangars that housed Earth’s large battle cruisers, except instead of massive ships, this space holds various robots, machines, and long snaking assembly lines filled with devices that are very clearly some sort of handheld weapon. Hundreds, no, thousands, of them.

It’s more weapons than Keith ever thought the Garrison would even need to possess. “What, are we giving each Earth citizen a shiny new gun for Christmas this year?”

In fact, the more Keith thinks about it, the more _everything_ Shiro showed him seems like A Lot. Thousands upon thousands of fighters. Hundreds upon hundreds of battle-class ships. Armaments that probably numbered in the millions. They needed to defend themselves, sure, but it’s not like Earth has the same conquering ambitions as the Galra. 

Shiro comes to stand beside him, like he’d been giving Keith a moment alone to simply absorb the entire scene before him. “Not quite. We’re not really in the business of gifting anyone with anything.”

Keith frowns. “What do you mean?”

“We’re accelerating our production for trade purposes or outright sales with our allies.”

It takes a few moments for that to sink in and for Keith to put two and two together. “You’re...you’re selling weapons and ships to the Federation?”

Shiro blinks at the incredulity in Keith’s tone before answering slowly, like maybe Keith is just a little late to the party, “Correct.”

And that just strikes Keith as fundamentally _wrong_. He spent the last half-decade of his life dedicated to helping others; he doesn’t expect nor want to be compensated for it, and he doesn’t think the rest of the team would either. “But some of those planets practically border what’s left of Galra territory. They’re vulnerable and need all the help they can get.”

“And as members of the Federation, they’ll receive the help they need should they require it,” Shiro says patiently. “But Keith, there are plenty of wealthy planets seeking out what we have.”

“I don’t recall sending planets a bill after Voltron helped liberate them,” Keith grits out, low and cutting, familiar in how often it was heard before another fight would break out.

There’s a tick in Shiro’s jaw, his only tell that his vaunted patience is wearing thin. Keith used to take pride in being able to get under Shiro’s skin like that, especially when he’d been in the throes of tempestuous puberty, but even then, Shiro never really lost control. He doesn’t now either. ”The universe considers us a backwater planet. We don’t have much else in the way of exports. We barely have enough arable land to feed ourselves. But this? This is something that is actually valuable, and Earth needs that money to support our own rebuilding efforts. Do you realize how many people died during Sendak’s invasion? Millions, Keith. It’s going to be a long time before we can recover.”

Shiro isn’t quite looking at him, but Keith catches a glimpse of it in Shiro’s carefully even expression anyway: the emptiness, the haunting phantom of failure. Shiro’s shoulders are slightly slumped, for once betraying the weight of the burdens he carries—literally, the burdens of the world.

And Keith feels suddenly that all too reoccuring stab of guilt.

He can’t imagine the amount of stress Shiro is under right now. How he never wanted this terrible responsibility and took it on anyway because no one else would. From the conversations they used to have back at the Garrison, especially when Shiro would talk Keith down from doing something monumentally stupid that would have gotten him expelled long before he actually had been, Shiro’s dreams had been simple: be a pilot, explore space. They were such uncomplicatedly pure desires that reflected the straightforward and honest nature of the man himself. 

“We’re being as responsible about it as we can possibly be,” Shiro goes on, earnestness making his voice seem almost pleading for Keith to understand and accept. “Every ship, every weapon is accounted for. No resale. Background checks. Ironclad contracts that stipulate very specific usage parameters. I’m not about to let dangerous technology fall into the wrong hands.”

“I...of course, Shiro. I never doubted that,” Keith says. He sighs. He hates arguing with Shiro. Has developed a real distaste for it, even when that’s all they seem to be doing these days. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so...it just didn’t sit right with me.” It still doesn’t, but Keith can at least understand the reasons for why Shiro is doing it. He just doesn’t _like_ it, but he knows when he’s being...well...naive about certain things. “Then again, a lot of things haven’t been sitting right with me lately. Yesterday, I was just reminiscing with Allura about the simpler times.”

Slowly, the tension recedes from Shiro’s body. Keith hadn’t realized how keyed up he was until Shiro is all sinuous lines and amused smirking and being way too much into Keith’s space because Shiro doesn’t understand sometimes how _big_ he actually is and it’s not...it’s not unattractive. No, it’s definitely devastating. “Simpler times?” he says, all low and shiver-inducing, which Keith has to restrain. “Like...canyon racing and when flying in space was done with a simulator and not sentient robot lions?”

“Don’t even have to go that far back,” Keith croaks before regaining control over himself. “When we were just learning how to be a real team and the worst thing we had to face was a ten thousand year old immortal evil alien dictator with super advanced tech and an evil right hand hag.” He grins.

It makes Shiro laugh, all soft huffs and reluctant smiles, which Keith counts as a win.

“Now I’m in charge of a team piloting the universe’s most powerful weapon and you’re like Earth’s new leader, and I used to watch the recordings of those Voltron shows, you know. You had to put painted boxes on your head and make stupid poses to try to entice people into our humble coalition and now look at it. Petty infighting and bickering and stupid, unfair punishments for just doing our jobs.”

And boy does Keith really enjoy the way Shiro crinkles his nose when he cringes. “I’m working on passing a motion through the Federation to get all those recordings destroyed.”

“How’s that one going?”

“Not well,” Shiro admits. “Apparently they’re ‘historical record’, whatever that means.”

Keith snorts and Shiro gives him a wry smile before their mirth starts to fade into something a little sad, and Keith less enjoys the wistful melancholy in Shiro’s eyes.

“I guess you’re not wrong,” Shiro says. “I miss those days too. I miss...I miss the team. I miss being on a team with you.”

It’s an old lingering guilt that gets stirred up like dust in the attic. Even though he’s a lot more settled into Black than he used to be, closer now to her than he ever had the chance to with Red, he can’t forget how before Black was his, she was Shiro’s, and he can’t imagine losing Black now the way Shiro had. _Twice_. “We’re still on the same team,” he insists, leaving no room for argument. “We just have different roles now.”

“I know,” Shiro says, though he doesn’t look all that mollified by it. Keith wants to say something else, is about to, when Shiro does that thing where his whole expression smooths over like a wave rolling in, leaving behind a shallow, reassuring smile that leaves Keith frustrated and regretful in turns. “We should have that dinner I promised you. How about tomorrow tonight in my quarters? I can’t promise it’ll be up to Hunk’s standards, but it’s going to be better than the cafeteria.”

Keith recognizes the change of subject for what it is, and this time, he allows it, maybe because he’s not so comfortable with the minefield subject matter either. “Sounds good.” And then, he also remembers his conversation with Allura, “There’s something I wanted to discuss with you too.”

“Oh yeah?” Shiro quirks a curious brow, but Keith doesn’t divulge anything more. It’s a touchy subject. He’d rather do it somewhere that wouldn’t echo so badly when they would inevitably raise their voices yet again. “Alright. I’ll let you keep your secrets for now. How about you swing by at nineteen hundred?”

“Sure. It’s a date,” Keith says and then immediately wants to smash his head against the nearest wall. Expression notwithstanding, his ensuing blush erases any hopes he could have of being nonchalant about it.

Fortunately, Shiro seems to be too lost in thought to notice. “Huh. Been awhile since I had one of those.”

When he looks back at Keith, there’s something calculating in his eyes that Keith can’t quite figure out, and then doesn’t get the chance to ponder over further before Shiro smirks and claps him on the arm before departing.

 

_____

 

Keith had wanted one, the team had argued for at least three.

Eventually they compromised on two weeks of shore leave before training (or, completely unnecessary re-training, Keith thinks bitterly) would commence. As soon as Atlas broke atmo, Hunk and Lance eagerly parted ways with the team via Atlas’s loaned shuttles to see to their families, which left, of their remaining Earth natives, just Pidge, whose family now resided on base. After several inquiries and getting turned around more times than he could count, Keith finds her in—where else?—a private cluttered lab in the R&D wing.

Pidge’s back is to the door, bent over a table and clearly engrossed in whatever latest project had captured her attention to notice his presence. It also doesn’t help that the music that is blaring from jury-rigged speakers, some sort of contemporary pop song that Keith never found the time to get into, is loud enough to be heard from well down the corridor. His wolf’s ears flatten and he looks at Keith balefully.

“I know,” Keith tells him. Or, really, shouts. “But we have to love her anyway.”

After a bit of trial and error, he finds the source of the music (an open laptop tuned to some Top 40’s station) and all too happily turns it off. The instant silence rings in his ears.

“Hey, I was listening to that!” Pidge’s head shoots up as she whirls around on her stool, her expression a preview of the fury she would unleash upon the bold interloper, when she sees that it’s just Keith and her ferocity immediately dissolves into a quirked smile. “Oh, hey Keith. Hey Kosmo.”

“I don’t know how you can even hear yourself think,” Keith says, rubbing at his ears while his wolf begins sniffing around curiously.

“On the contrary, the music helps me to focus better,” Pidge says before swiveling back to the table. “I just used headphones in the Castle, but since I pretty much have this whole section to myself? I’m ready to raise the roooooof...okay, I’ve been around Lance too long. If you ever tell anyone about that, I’ll kill you.”

Having no idea what Pidge is talking about (which, if he were being honest, seems to be about half of what Pidge talks about anyway), Keith chooses not to comment as he edges around the end of the table to get a glimpse of what she's working on, which isn’t any sort of a physical device, but a large tablet display full of code. “What are you up to?”

“Oh, just something I’ve been tinkering around with off and on.” Which isn’t exactly a helpful explanation given that it could be said of just about everything in Keith’s sight.

He arches a brow. “Care to be more specific?”

Pidge shoots him a look that says she finds him exasperating, but he’s lucky she likes him. “It’s sort of like the chimaera of viruses. It’s designed to analyze a system’s security protocols and then adapt to them in order to infiltrate the system without notice or leaving any fingerprints behind.” A beat, and then, more self-consciously, “I’m calling it Ghost.” Because, of course, Pidge gives all her creations a name and possibly loves some of them more than most humans.

“That’s...pretty cool,” Keith says, both visibly impressed and maybe a little bit embarrassed that the only accomplishments his hobbies could claim were a few destroyed Gladiator bots back in an alien Castle ship that no longer even exists.

“There’s still some bugs to work through,” Pidge admits, her despondent tone making it sound like a personal failing. “But I’m hoping now that we have an intact robeast to study, we’ll be able to trace its signal back to its original source and find out where exactly it was sent from.”

“I thought it was Haggar’s magic that was controlling these.”

“That’s where the Olkari come in,” Pidge says, perking up. “Did you know Shiro invited a delegation here to work with us? I only got to speak with them for a little while this afternoon, but already they’ve given me a lot of ideas for how to incorporate magic into this.”

He pauses. “Shiro asked you to do this?”

“Yeah,” Pidge says. “He invited me to be a part of the research team. I figured it was a good way to pass the time as any since I won’t be flying Green any time soon.”

Keith frowns. “It’s not going to be for that long.”

As if sensing his defensiveness, Pidge’s expression softens into something that Keith would call patronizing if he didn’t know her better. “I know, I know. But you know me. I like to have a few things going on at once.”

“And this doesn’t bother you at all? Being grounded?” he presses.

This time, Pidge furrows a brow, and a corner of her mouth draws downwards. “No one here is questioning your leadership skills, Keith. We all trust you with our lives, you know that. We’d follow you anywhere. Everyone else is...they’re just a bunch of bureaucrats looking to score a few political points. They’ll never know what it’s really like to be a part of Voltron. We have to play nice with them, but we all know it’s just for show until the heat dies down, okay?”

Keith releases a breath he didn’t realize he’s been holding, finding himself warmed by her words despite himself. There’s a part of him that’s disgusted by how whiny and insecure he’s being, but there’s just something about the entire situation that manages to sneak in through all the fine hairline cracks of his carefully cultivated defenses. Still, it’s always nice to know his team has his back. There was a long time there when he didn’t have anyone, much less an entire Paladin family. “Thanks, Pidge. I guess I needed to hear that.”

Pidge gives him a slight smile, half self-conscious, half-pleased, and wholly sincere. “Maybe it’s selfish of us, but it’s also kind of nice to have this little break, you know? It’s been a hard couple of years. We’re all a little tired.”

There’s something in her tone that makes him study her face. It’s thinned out quite a bit, Keith notes. Her hair is now long enough to be pulled back into a frustrated bun. There are dark smudges beneath her eyes that Keith thinks may never go away, embedded into her skin like stones. Pidge doesn’t look like that young, naive cadet pretending to be a boy he first met all those years back. She’s an experienced fighter now, caught up in a war she should never have had to be a part of to begin with. She’s gone to the ends of the universe to find her family again, only to barely have the chance to see them.

The least he can do is give her this.

“You’re right. The downtime will do us all some good. Just remember that you’re supposed to be _relaxing_ , which means getting to bed at a decent hour sometime tonight.”

Pidge snorts inelegantly. “Now you’re starting to sound like my mother. Or Shiro.”

Keith crosses his arms. “Someone’s gotta keep you cadets in line.”

“Uh huh,” Pidge says dryly. “You gonna stick around? I don’t mind. Unlike Hunk, you know how to keep your hands to yourself.”

“I would, but, uh...I’ve got somewhere to be soon.”

“Oh really?” Pidge gives him an all too knowing look that refuses to blush under. “Somewhere or... _someone_?”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” He scowls. “Also, I don’t know what you’re implying, but whatever it is...it’s not like that.”

The expression on Pidge’s face wavers between incredulity and pity, finally settling on bemusement before she turns back to her mass of incomprehensible code. “If you say so.”

Keith resists the urge to continue his protest, something about doing too much of it being a bad thing and all that. Really, did Shiro have half this much trouble when he was the Black Paladin?

 

_____

 

After a few fumbling attempts to find out where, exactly, Shiro’s quarters actually are, Keith is somewhat taken aback to learn that they’re exactly where they always were: the very same couple-appointed rooms he once co-habitated with Adam.

He knows for a fact that Adam had moved out shortly after Shiro left for Kerberos. That the Garrison must have reassigned the rooms swiftly thereafter—couples housing always had a waitlist as long as his arm, as far as he’s known it to be. They afforded slightly more decent, if not exactly luxurious, lodgings than the cadet barracks or even the officer rooms, but certainly weren’t anywhere approaching the standards that Shiro would be entitled to now.

As Keith walks down the familiar spartan corridors, the memories they invoke are bittersweet. He often made this same trip between classes or in the evenings before curfew, seeking Shiro out like a dog curling up in warm spot in front of the fireplace. He never really sought to make friends with the other cadets in his or any other year. His only connection in his entire life at that point had been Shiro, and it had been enough.

Before Keith has a chance to announce his presence, the doors to Shiro’s quarters hiss open to reveal the man himself, hair mussed and half-damp, practically bursting out of an old Garrison t-shirt and sweats. It must have been a hasty pat down with a towel, because there are still shimmering droplets of water clinging to his skin. He’s barefoot. Which is nice. Like the rest of him, Shiro’s feet are long and elegantly shaped.

Whatever smart greeting Keith planned to make evaporates from his suddenly dry throat.

“Sorry,” Shiro says sheepishly. “I’m running late. Dinner’s not quite ready yet, but come in.”

“It’s fine,” Keith manages, trying to turn it into a casual shrug. “It’s just me.”

“It’s more than _just you_.” Shiro gives him a look before stepping back that Keith can’t quite parse, but it’s laden with something that makes his stomach flip over pleasantly as he enters.

But whatever warm glow he has from Shiro’s greeting is completely swept away by the cold shock of seeing Shiro’s quarters...exactly the same as when he’d lived with Adam.

Same books. Same layout. Same model spaceships on the shelves because Shiro has always been a nerd for space. Same medals and plaque displays.

Well, not entirely, Keith amends upon closer scrutiny. Adam’s stuff is gone. They probably went with him when he moved out and were later shipped to his family after his death. The photos are gone too, not just the ones of Adam and Shiro during the rare times they were on leave together, but all of them, including some that had just been of Shiro himself. Keith had been particularly fond of the one Adam had taken of Shiro looking flushly exhilarated, still in his flight suit, after his first solo flight.

Still, the whole setup is similar enough to before that it makes Keith feel off-kilter, even when he knows it shouldn’t. It’s just _stuff_. Shiro has every right to reclaim the things he hasn’t seen in years. Maybe he’s just nostalgic. Maybe this, to him, is comfort.

Shiro isn’t Keith, who’d happily let all the bad memories and anything that was a painful reminder of them burn in a fire. Who finds even staying in the guest quarters on the base hive-inducing.

But Shiro, thankfully, isn’t paying attention Keith’s private inner drama, having already returned to the kitchenette to monitor something on the stove that’s permeating the air with the scent of frying oil. There’s already an array of small dishes set out on the table, Japanese eggplant and pickled cucumbers and radishes are the only ones Keith can readily identify from Shiro having introduced them to him in previous cozy suppers. A crackle and hiss draws him closer to the stove where several breaded cutlets are happily sizzling in their golden hot bath.

Pork katsu. His favorite, he recalled telling Shiro once after nearly consuming his weight in it. Shiro may not be the food virtuoso that Hunk is in the kitchen, but he grew up at his grandmother’s side and picked up a thing or two.

“Everyone kept raving about getting a chance to eat with their families again. I figured you deserve a home cooked meal too,” Shiro says without glancing up. His intense concentration is firmly fixed upon the browning cutlets as he gently turns them over with a pair of chopsticks, a nimble feat given the thick and still ungainly fingers of his cybernetic arm.

Keith doesn’t know what to say. A thick lump forms in his throat that keeps down any potentially mortifying words. He always thought he’d lost every home he’s ever had.

“Smells good,” is what he settles for, stupid as it is. 

The look Shiro gives him in return makes him feel like he’s the one simmering in oil.

“Do you, uh, need any help?” he manages to squeeze out, and it almost sounds normal.

“I think I’ve got things covered here. Why don’t you go sit down? This will be done soon.”

Keith practically leaps at the suggestion with gratefulness. Without even thinking about it, he takes up his old spot at the table and tries not to feel like that anxious, wary child again. Picking up the pair of chopsticks neatly laid across a napkin, he begins to clumsily poke at some of the pickled vegetables in an attempt to spear a few slices. “I didn’t think you’d end up back here again. Can’t world leaders afford slightly classier digs?”

“It didn’t feel right, having someone clear out Admiral Sanda’s things just so I could move right in,” Shiro says without turning around. “And I liked my place. I wanted it back. There was another couple living here at the time, but I offered them a trade, and, well, they didn’t say no.”

Keith pauses. Wait. “You traded Sanda’s apartment for...this?”

Shiro tosses a smirk over his shoulder. “They’re the happiest officers on the base, I hear.” It’s enough to leave Keith speechless while Shiro drains the pork cutlets of the last of their oil and brings the platter over to the table along with a hot container of rice. “Besides, I wouldn’t have known what to do with all that space. It’s just me, after all.”

He knows Shiro meant to say it casually, but there’s something sad in the simple words. The long moment of quiet that lingers after is nothing short of awkward, full of too many unspoken things.

And as if realizing that too late, Shiro’s eyes widen briefly and he laughs ruefully. “Well, I know it’s been awhile since I got to make anything in a kitchen, but you could at least pretend to look eager.”

“Right. Sorry.” Belatedly, Keith begins filling up his plate. “No, I mean. It looks good. All of it. Looks great. It’s my favorite, actually.”

“I know,” Shiro says simply. “It’s why I made it.”

To prevent any more embarrassing things from coming out of his mouth, Keith proceeds to stuff it full of food. He wasn’t even lying: the food looks great and tastes even better. He probably should attempt to slow down and eat like a civilized human being, but he can’t help himself. There might even be some truly horrendous noises coming out of his mouth, because this is, literally, worlds away from food goo and unidentifiable alien tubers and fungi, to say nothing of the questionable meat they’ve all had to live off of for the last half decade.

Anyway, Shiro doesn’t call him out on it. He just seems quietly pleased by Keith’s obvious enjoyment, all too happy to portion out second helpings upon request.

“God,” Keith groans, finally taking a moment to sit back and take in how overstuffed he is. “That was really great, Shiro. I missed this.” _This_ , more than the food itself. Their time together, when it's just the two of them. No urgent matters or risks of imminent alien attacks. In the very same quarters, Keith can almost pretend they’d traveled back in time.

“Me too,” Shiro says softly, looking contemplatively at the chopsticks dangling between his fingers. He only had a little trouble manipulating them with his left hand, but like all things Shiro applied himself to, he soon wielded them naturally like he'd done so all his life. “Things have...really changed, haven’t they?”

“Could you have imagined this is where we’d end up, all those years ago?”

“Not in a million years,” Shiro says. “I wasn’t so ambitious, for one.”

“Do you regret the way things turned out?” Keith asks before he can think better of it. It’s a question that lingers in the back of his mind a lot these days like a bad habit, churning around his head every night before he falls asleep as he reviews how the past day had gone, what he could have done differently, done better.

“Many things,” Shiro readily admits, giving Keith a look like those things should be obvious, and for the most part, they are, despite the fact that none of those things were even his fault. “But the Galra don’t rule the universe anymore, and Earth solved its question on the existence of aliens, and I got to see you become the leader you were always meant to be. I figure it all has to even out in the end.”

He soaks up Shiro’s praise like a flower blossoming beneath the sun, even when he reminds himself that everything Shiro’s telling him, he already knows. And speaking of good leaders…. “About the thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

Shiro’s brows draw together. “What is it?”

Keith draws a breath and braces himself. “Allura, Coran, and Romelle want to go back to Romelle’s colony to make sure...well, you know what’s been powering those robeasts. And there’s only one source of that many Alteans that we know of. We should have gone back straight away. But...I know we’ve been kept busy. Maybe intentionally busy. Distracted, even. And if Voltron’s being grounded, then we should use that time to find out what’s happened. I want to go with them. And we should at least take Black. It’s just a scouting mission, but we can’t be too careful.”

“Woah, woah, woah.” Shiro holds up his hands. “Keith, not days ago you agreed you wouldn’t be stepping into your Lion until your training was up to council approval—”

Keith scoffs. “This is more important than dealing with a bunch of red tape, Shiro.”

“And even if you could, you wouldn’t even have the time to go anyway.”

That’s news to him. “What? Why?”

“It’s been a few years since you were a cadet here. You missed out on a lot of foundational training that Hunk, Lance, and Pidge all have. I think it would be best if you were put into a few of the ongoing classes here to catch up before the rest of the team comes back from shore leave.”

Shiro wanted him to restart his cadet training? Was he fucking kidding? “What does that have anything to do with leading Voltron? We’ve been doing just fine so far. I could already outfly anyone in my class, training or no, and that was before the years of firsthand experience I got fighting in a, what was that again, an intergalactic war?”

“There’s more to leading a team than just the mechanics of flying and shooting at things,” Shiro says calmly. “This training covers leadership skills, management, tactics and strategy. All things that can benefit the team, reduce the risk of injury, and minimize collateral damage. Even when I became an officer, I had to participate in these courses. The things I took away from them ended up saving mine and my team’s lives. They could one day end up saving yours.”

It grudgingly makes plenty of sense. He can’t count the number of times Pidge or Lance made some sort of ridiculous hand signal he couldn’t understand and had to more less wing it anyway. But. “Regardless,” Keith says through clenched teeth. “Allura still needs my help.”

“Which is why I’ll make sure she will have a fully armed escort to accompany her, made up of only the best the Earth has to offer.”

“That’s…” Keith sputters, trying to find any other angle to argue the issue. “That’s not going to be enough. I mean, sure, Shiro, your new fleet is great and all, but you and I both know a Lion would be safer.”

“And not particularly stealthy, not to mention completely recognizable to everyone in the universe,” Shiro says before his eyes narrow. “If this is supposed to be a reconnaissance mission, then our IGF ships are well suited to the job. Don’t count us out just yet.”

He hates it when Shiro is like this, able to verbally outmaneuver Keith at every turn, making Keith feel like the unreasonable one when he knows, deep down where his instinct thrives and keeps him and his team alive, what’s best. It’s infuriating.

“When you were the Black Paladin,” Keith tries, “You would have insisted on the very same thing. As Voltron’s leader, I should be there for my team.”

But Shiro just looks at him with something akin to pity, all _you have much to learn still, young grasshopper_. “Back then, we didn’t have much of a choice, Keith. There were just five of us, grossly inexperienced, trying to bring down an empire. We had to stick together. And in hindsight? We were incredibly lucky to have managed as well as we did, no matter how many skills we had or how powerful Voltron was. Even then, you may recall, not all of us made it out with our lives.”

For as much as Shiro could say those words with nary a change in his stony expression, Keith flinches like they were a physical blow. The dinner he’d so ravenously inhaled now feels like a heavy stone in his stomach, rancid and oppressive. He stares at the gleaming crumbs on his plate like they were the personal cause of his troubles.

But a hand cuts into his line of vision, white metal with a sheen of blue emanating warmly from its palm, covering Keith’s clenched fist. “But it doesn’t have to be like that anymore. We’ve come so far from those days and we’ve learned so much. We can afford to be more strategic now. This is the time you need to focus on your leadership training. You’ll be of greater benefit to the team like this.”

When Keith looks up, Shiro’s face is full of its familiar warm assurance. It’s a face Keith has trusted time and time again without question and it’s never led him wrong, evil clones notwithstanding.

So why does it not sit right with him now?

He’s still adjusting to how much everything has changed. Their new positions as equals. Their places in the upended universe. They all are.

Keith breathes in, holds the air in his lungs until it clamors against the walls of his chest, and lets it go—and with it, the fight. The release bows his spine and curves his shoulders forward. Feels good, in a way. He shouldn’t have to fight with Shiro. Doesn’t ever want to. Never again. “I just feel like I’d be letting her down as her leader.”

“You’re not letting her down, Keith,” Shiro says. “You’re letting her go. It’s a fine distinction to learn as a leader. And she’s not going to be alone. Coran, Romelle, and Allura will be safe with Earth’s forces, I promise.”

Shiro’s promises are precious things, unbroken and not issued lightly. With his back to the wall in the confrontation of Shiro’s earnest eyes and wiser face and understanding smile, Keith finds himself turning his hand up, just a little, to skim his thumb across the smooth, surprisingly cool planes of Shiro’s fingers, wondering if that feathery sensation can be felt or if all the mighty Altean power that courses through the limb had deemed such a trivial human detail too inconsequential to be bothered with.

For the span of a heartbeat, he holds his breath, wondering, half-hoping.

But Shiro’s hand doesn’t twitch nor is there anything telling in his expression to indicate the answer.

“Okay,” Keith relents. Really, when it comes down to it, what other choice does he have?


	3. Chapter 3

Against the cloudless blue sky, sleek MFE fighters easily catch the glint of the sun and flash shards of bright, burning light across Keith’s eyes as they arc and tumble through the air, swift and graceful as fish in water. Their very existence is a wonder in its own way, if not quite as obvious to the eye as Atlas. He’s been at the Garrison long enough now to have heard all about them: Commander Holt worked tirelessly to improve their fuel efficiency, some sort of special combination of faunatonium and Atlas’s own crystal energy, to the point where they can now stay in the air for nearly six hours. Modern feats of engineering, people say, strengthened by a team of well-trained pilots who flew with utmost discipline and skill.

Seeing it for himself now, even Keith has to grudgingly allow that Griffin’s crew is impressive.

(But Team Voltron will always be better.)

None of this, of course, does much to improve his admittedly self-induced sulk, being made to stand on the sidelines with junior officers who don’t have half his experience, much less stepped foot in a real cockpit.

“Can someone tell me at least four basic aerial combat maneuvers?” Commander Holt asks the gathering.

Several hands shoot up around Keith. Some of them are even waving.

“Yes, McNeil,” Commander Holt nods to a boy who couldn’t be older than eighteen and, from the looks of him, is most definitely the brown noser of the bunch.

“Combat spread, pitchbacks, breaking, barrel rolls, sir,” McNeil answers. “The MFE Fighters can perform all basic combat aerial maneuvers with almost seventy percent less kinetic waste.”

“Very good. I see you’ve done your research.”

McNeil beams. Keith privately congratulates himself on controlling his own expression. Shiro would be proud of him.

The fighters roar overhead in four-finger formation like they’re showing off at a parade, and this time Keith can’t help scowling. He’d forgotten how smug everyone could be at the Garrison over the most pointless accomplishments, always trying to outshine and one-up each other. It was one of the things Keith had enjoyed the least about the entire program. And, sure, he could be competitive, but he’d only ever really been motivated to do so to shut up the arrogant pricks that seemed to make up the rest of his class.

At the heart of it, he had only ever wanted to fly without any of the bullshit.

Maybe he’s not as circumspect as he thinks he’s being or Commander Holt’s teacher senses are particularly honed, because Holt’s glare zeroes in on him and intensifies like a spotlight. “Is there something you disagree with, Kogane?”

It causes Keith to freeze up, familiar and dreaded feelings rushing back to him in an instant: a student caught out for doing something wrong.

But he’s not a student anymore, and Commander Holt, decent man that he is, Pidge’s father or not, is not his commanding officer.

“No, Commander Holt,” Keith says, looking Commander Holt square in the eye. “I just don’t understand how random trivia about even your very impressive IGF fleet is supposed to help me with the leadership training I was given to understand I’d be receiving here.”

It’s second nature, the way he’s always been able to get under the skin of any teacher, social worker, adult, or authority figure. Surely Commander Holt is remembering that unique skill of his as well, though the only indication giving away his irritation is the slightest tightening at the corner of his mouth. Keith’s almost disappointed.

Instead, Commander Holt presses a finger to the comms unit in his ear. “Lieutenant Griffin, I think it’s time to bring the birds home.”

Keith’s better-than-human hearing can just make out the crackling reply. “Copy that, Commander. See you on the ground.”

They’re treated to another grandiose display of the fighter jets coming together like a flock of migrating birds, individual parts, yet so well coordinated with each other that they almost move like one being. A few more cuts and curves sluicing through the air in perfect synchronization to get them in line with the landing strip, and then the fighters are gliding back down to earth as gently as paper planes.

McNeil whistles low under his breath. “Damn. I can’t wait to jump in one of those.”

“Get in line,” an also painfully young looking girl says next to him whose name Keith hasn’t bothered to learn.

And the thing is, Keith can’t even fault them for their dumb, slack-jawed awe. It’s all too uncomfortably familiar to how he felt when he first saw the Lions. First Blue, then Red. His Red.

He still misses her.

Griffin is the first to emerge from his jet, swiftly followed by Kinkade, Leifsdottir, and Rizavi, all looking flushed and windswept and thoroughly satisfied. As if someone gave some invisible cue, the rest of the class around Keith surge forward to swarm the pilots almost as soon as their feet hit the ground.

“That was amazing!”

“Nice job, man!”

“How fast does it go?”

“How many kills you got?”

“How many hours have you logged?” 

“How responsive is she?”

“When will I get to fly one?”

Commander Holt holds up his hands to stall the torrent. “Alright, alright, everyone. One question at a time.”

Keith hadn’t been there when Team Voltron had embarked on its Universe-wide recruitment tour, dressing up in stupid costumes and performing in massive intergalactic stadiums to the roaring adulation of the crowds. He’d still been unconscious and laid up in the hospital when they held that ceremony on Earth after Sendak. Hell, the most attention he ever received were the resentful glares and snide remarks directed at the Blades after their coordinated attack against the Galra Empire. Crowds, attention, that rabid and sometimes frightening hero worship...they’re just not his thing.

But Griffin is loving this, even when the rest of his team hang back. Oh, he’s trying so hard to look unaffected and humble and leader-like, but there’s a preening gleam in his eyes. A smirk to the angle of his mouth. Keith has to take it upon himself to be embarrassed for him, because Griffin sure as shit isn’t the least bit self-conscious himself.

(Inevitably, Keith can’t help comparing him to Shiro. Shiro somehow manages to always look sincere and gracious and self-effacing while deftly turning all that positive attention back on the giver so that by the time they’d run out of breath, they were feeling even better about themselves.)

This is such a waste of his time.

“I have a question,” Commander Holt cuts in before another deluge can begin. It effectively silences everyone. “How did you get your team to work so well together, Lieutenant Griffin?”

Holt doesn’t look his way, but he might as well have for the way some of the others shoot him glances over their shoulders. Real cute.

“A lot of hard work and patience, Commander! It certainly didn’t come together overnight.” Griffin says with a hearty chuckle, like he regularly practiced it in front of the mirror to strike that pitch perfect balance of rueful. “I admit that in the beginning, I thought being a good leader was about trying to convince people that my way was the best way, but it’s not about that at all. It _is_ partly about knowing when to step in and take charge, but mostly about when to step back. My team is talented and intelligent, much more so than me. I’m glad I learned that lesson, but it wasn’t easy, and I’m still in need of the occasional reminder, which they’re all too happy to give me.” Griffin looks back at his team who, to his credit, regard him just as fondly. 

“And hundreds of hours of practice drills,” Rizavi adds.

“Nine hundred fifty-six hours before the beneficial effects of our practice became observable for all members of the team,” Leifsdottir states.

“I was the last to notice,” Griffin jokes.

Laughter all around.

“But in all seriousness,” Griffin says, “I was slow on the uptake. And impatient. If something didn’t go right the first time or I didn’t see the immediate results of what I was doing, I’d get discouraged and then angry. I used to complain I was wasting my time. But it was my team and the senior officers of this Garrison who would always keep me grounded. They were actually the patient ones. I’m grateful to all of them. My advice to others is to always be open to learning and listening in your classes, to your instructors, to senior officers and personnel. Even to your own peers and teammates. We’re all here to help each other.”

Griffin looks directly at him as he finishes speaking. Keith narrows his eyes.

“You’ve come a long way,” Commander Holt says quietly, laying a hand on Griffin’s shoulder. “The Garrison is proud to have you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

In another lifetime, if circumstances had not gone the way they had, this is what Shiro would have wanted for him, Keith knows. To be up there in Griffin’s place, looked up to by his youngers, regarded with respect and trust by his elders. It would be Shiro’s hand on his shoulder. It would be Shiro gazing at him with pride. Maybe something more. He’d squeeze a little with his hand, not too hard, but reassuringly, all that strength and restraint that Keith often fantasized about in other far more heated contexts, wielded carefully just for him.

He blinks, comes back to the presence with a snap. The class is reluctantly dispersing, after school special lessons apparently done for the day, only Griffin’s hanging back, having shaken off the last of his fan club.

Keith tries to blend in with the others to make his quick escape, but—

“Hey, Kogane.”

He sighs and turns back. “What.”

“What’s your problem?” Griffin has the nerve to ask, coming towards him, helmet perched on his hip, cradled under his arm.

He only stops when they can look each other in the eye. They are, much to Keith’s annoyance, the same height. “ _My_ problem?”

“Yeah. Do you think you’re suddenly too good for classes now? Being Voltron’s leader makes you better than us?”

The full frontal assault catches Keith off-guard, but he shouldn’t have expected anything less from Griffin, who never made it a secret of just what he thought of him. “Of course not.”

“But you think all of this is a waste. It’s all beneath you, isn’t it?”

Keith presses his lips together. Given his earlier thoughts, it’s not something he can refute. Still, the implication alone is enough to make him grit his teeth. “I never said that.” At least out loud. “Stop putting words in my mouth.”

“You didn’t have to. Your actions speak louder than words.” Griffin tips his chin up, then to the side as if he is considering something. “You know, the cadets and officers here look up to you and Voltron too. Then they see your attitude, the way you talk back to our leaders, the lack of respect...it’s disappointing to find out one of their heroes is kinda an asshole.”

“How much respect do you think I should pay to an institution whose previous leader sold them out?” Keith asks, privately enjoying the flare of Griffin’s nostrils. “Look, I didn’t ask to be anyone’s hero. And I’m not here to lap up the praise like some people I see.”

“Do you know how many people on Earth were suffering while Voltron was MIA for years?” Griffin asks, squaring his jaw. “How close humans were to becoming all but extinct? Every single person here has worked hard and paid a steep price to be where they are now and I’m proud of what my team and I have done. I hope it will inspire others who will come after me. That’s the legacy we’re trying to build here. It’ll last long after Voltron’s gone.”

Keith clenches his fists. “You don’t know a damn thing about what we’ve had to go through so that you can fly around in your little fancy fighter jet. I know you’d rather while away your time showing off how many weapons and ships you can make, but I’d like to focus on defeating Haggar once and for all!”

“You really don’t get it, do you?” Griffin shakes his head, tsking like Keith’s a lost cause. “Same old Kogane: the self-imposed loner who’s just so misunderstood. Thinks he’s better than everyone and that’s why no one actually likes him.”

He knows that a younger him, before Voltron and the Galra and the Blades, would have inwardly crumbled at the accusation and then compensated by letting his fists fly. Now, though, it’s practically laughable. His world—no, his universe—is so much bigger now. “The people who actually matter like me just fine. That’s all I care about.” Having wasted enough of his time already today, he turns to leave. “But keep feeding your petty little ego, Griffin. The rest of us have real work to do.”

“And what work is that?” Griffin shouts after him, but Keith refuses to turn around again and give him the satisfaction. “Only one of us here is getting off the ground any time soon, Kogane. Maybe a few months in the trenches will finally give you some perspective on what the rest of us have known all along!”

Keith’s steps damnably falter, his spine stiffening without his consent, his teeth clenched together enough to ache, but he doesn’t stop. Can’t. Even if it turns out Griffin can still get under his skin after all.

 

_____

 

“Griffin’s an asshole,” Keith declares.

Alright, so it may not have been the best way to answer Shiro’s question on how classes were going, but it’s at the top of his mind and the most honest answer he could give.

In fact, Keith could, and eagerly did, blame Shiro for the lack of filter between his brain and his mouth, seeing as how Shiro is currently doing everything in his power to distract Keith with the constant flexing of his arms as he warmed up with some inhuman number pushups. It’s mesmerizing to watch the muscles move beneath his smooth biceps, like watching waves rolling in and out.

“I’m sure,” Shiro grunts out, not even pausing, “the feeling’s mutual. You’re supposed to be on your best behavior.”

“I haven’t been kicked out yet?” Keith offers in consolation. The loose sweatpants Shiro’s wearing hug the backs of his legs. His white racer tank is lightly bunched at the small of his back, which, really, leaves a perfect view of his—“Is this,” he waves at Shiro’s entire form-perfect body, “even a challenge with the arm?”

Through his long white bangs, Shiro gives him a look that is equal parts amused and dangerous. Then, slowly and precisely, he raises his cybernetic arm and tucks it against the small of his back before continuing the steady rise and fall with nary a change to his earlier speed or, seemingly, effortlessness.

It’s insanely infuriating and hot in equal measure.

Theoretically, he’s supposed to be working out too since it’s been far too long, but, well, distractions. He misses the Castle’s gladiators. The idea of lifting weights or using a punching bag don’t hold much appeal in comparison, and he certainly doesn’t possess half of Shiro’s dedication to personal fitness nor the discipline.

“Maybe if you kept an open mind about these things,” Shiro continued. “You’d enjoy the experience more.”

“Open to what?” Keith asks. “All it’s been so far is propaganda about how great Earth’s fleet is now, how _amazing_ its pilots are….”

“Giving people something to believe in and be inspired by never hurts.”

“Yeah, well, your wide eyed, fresh faced little junior officers may be buying that bullshit, but don’t ask me to swallow it too, Shiro.”

Shiro pushes off the ground one final time and stands up in one, fluid motion. He shakes out his arm and flexes his hand. There’s a glimmer of perspiration across his brow. His mouth if a firm straight line that is telling. He’s not happy but he’s probably counting to ten and measuring his words.

“You’re frustrated,” Shiro says. “I understand. Why don’t we get some of that restlessness out? How about some sparring?”

The offer, instead of a lecture, pulls Keith up short. “What, really?”

“It’s been awhile,” Shiro says. “Afraid you’ve gotten rusty?”

“You wish,” Keith says with the beginnings of a knife sharp smile. He jumps to his feet and steps onto the mat, practically bouncing on his heels. “Hand to hand?”

But Shiro shakes his head, heading towards the back wall with its rack of various weaponry Keith has never seen anyone actually use here. “I was thinking something that’ll be a challenge for us both.” He grabs two bo staffs.

“Says the man who trained with them throughout his childhood,” Keith glowers, but accepts the staff offered to him.

“Who hasn’t touched them since,” Shiro corrects. “Come on. You like a challenge.”

Keith’s tests the weight and balance of his staff, already feeling ungainly. He’s better with lighter one handed weapons, likes having the option of a free hand.

But he’s not going to make this easy.

He twirls the staff in his hand just because he can. “Let’s do this.”

They square off against each other, stances wide, staffs held up in nearly mirrored positions. Keith knows Shiro expects him to get impatient, go on the attack first, and he can’t say he doesn’t want to, every cell in his body demanding action, better at moving than not...but it’s also a test, he knows. One he’s determined to pass.

Shiro grins.

From one moment to the next, stillness to storm, Shiro moves in, feet barely inching forward, end of his staff thrust sharply towards his ribs just beneath Keith’s arms, which Keith barely moves in time to block. It’s followed by an arc toward towards his face, then an attempted strike to the back of his knee, leaving Keith to backstep quickly, stumbling like a newborn colt.

Rusty, his _ass_.

Shiro doesn’t advance when Keith backs away even further, lets Keith regain his wits and reassess, because this is the lesson, isn’t it? It’s always about _patience_ , and Shiro is always the pinnacle of focus and concentration.

He releases a breath, thinks. Shiro has years more experience with this and Keith will never beat him for sheer strength. He’s quick and agile, but Keith’s faster. He’s still not used to the different weight and balance of his new arm. It will be slower to react, even if just by a fraction of a second. And Keith doesn’t need to abide by formal training, positions, and movements. He fights dirty to win.

This time, Keith goes on the offense, striking out to Shiro’s right flank, forcing him to rely on his cybernetic arm to block in rapid succession, then to have to step back. Their staffs crack together harder, each collision shuddering through Keith’s arms. Keith grunts and tries for a blow at Shiro’s inner leg, and when Shiro moves to block, right arm, as expected, just a little too slow, and it’s the small opening Keith needs to pin the end of his staff to the floor and vault off it, his heels landing against Shiro’s solar plexus.

Shiro stumbles back, ungainly for once, the breath audibly knocked from his lungs, and Keith doesn’t stop, coming back to land on the floor and use his momentum to bring his staff up and whip it behind Shiro’s legs, sweeping him off his feet to land flat on his back.

But before Keith can bring the butt of his staff to Shiro’s neck and demand his yield, Shiro rolls quickly out of the way, throwing out a hand to knock Keith’s staff away and cause him to stumble forwards, right into the end of Shiro’s staff rising up to deliver a blow to his shoulder.

Keith grunts in surprise more than pain, accepts the follow up blow to his stomach and staggers back, only just bringing his staff back up to block Shiro’s next flurry of attacks.

It’s exhausting. Already Keith feels the weariness in arms. It’s been too long since he’s even been able to do this. He’s trying to suck down air and is going cross eyed from keep up with the blur of motion backing him into a corner and there’s a blankness to Shiro’s face that’s almost frightening, a mindlessness. If this were real, if this were Shiro determined to kill, Keith would already be dea—

No. Because Shiro, or the mind-controlled thing that had been Shiro, _did_ try to kill him once. Had tried his hardest.

Keith lets himself suddenly drop to his knees and rolls onto his back, knocking away the next blow aimed at where his chest would have been and kicking out Shiro’s exposed shin, forcing the leg to buckle. Keith’s next strike accidentally catches Shiro in the chest, the next strike sweeping outward to throw his arm wide and break his grip.

The end of his staff swings and stops short at the hollow of Shiro’s throat just as he feels the threatening kiss of Shiro’s staff beneath his own chin. Perfect stalemate.

They’re both breathing hard. There’s a light red flush along Shiro’s cheeks. A light sheen across his skin, temples darkened with sweat. His eyes are wild. This is his Shiro, finally, and he’s missed him so much.

Keith does, of course, the stupid thing.

Which is to slide the tip of his staff behind Shiro’s neck and draw him closer, swallowing his startled noise by kissing him. All of Keith’s enhanced senses light up like a blitz. It’s a flashfire of sensation, damp heat and pressure and hint of salt, the warm exhale of Shiro’s breath against his skin and his slightly chapped lips lax but firm beneath Keith’s. The way he smells just nice, scent-free soap and clean sweat from the purity of his exertions.

And then he pulls back, and it’s cold where it had been hot, Shiro is staring at him with wide eyes, and the full magnitude of what he’s done hits him all at once.

“Sorry. I…” His mouth moves, but the words stick in his dry throat. “I don’t know what that was. Sorry.” Then, after a continued painful silence in which Keith fervently wished for the floor to open up and swallow him whole or for Haggar to launch another attack, “Look, let’s just forget it happened. It’s just stress, okay?”

“Keith,” Shiro says.

One word and the rest of Keith’s excuses come to a stuttering halt. He can’t bear to look at the impossibly tender expression Shiro will have as he lets Keith down easy, that he thinks of Keith only as a friend, practically a brother, so he finds a spot on the mats to stare at instead: a slight depression in the otherwise smooth, featureless gray.

But Shiro’s warm hand lifts his chin up and forces Keith to meet his gaze. There’s that soft, soft look, yes, but it’s the small caress to his cheek Shiro makes with his thumb, too intimate, that keeps some small flame of hope alive in his chest. “Since when?”

He considers playing dumb, one last exit before there’s no going back, but...but he’s tired. There’s very little in his life that has remained stable and everything’s changing yet again. How badly he wants Shiro to be one of those anchors. “I don’t know,” Keith says. “I think it was always there. I just didn’t know what it was until recently. I don’t want to mess us up.”

“Neither do I,” Shiro says, and Keith’s heart plummets.

But this time it’s him who gets to be surprised when Shiro drags him forward and kisses him again, and if it was just a flash of fire before, it’s a burning inferno now.

Shiro kisses like he does everything else: with all of his focus, drive, and consumption. With his entire body, pressing against Keith, enveloping him in his arms, running his hands through his hair, over the back of his neck, the length of his spine, around the curve of his ribs and finally resting a splayed palm over Keith’s heart.

He’s been the target of Shiro’s good intentions before but this is...this is something else entirely. He’s never realized how restrained Shiro always is, not like this, pressing Keith back to the mats, his body broad, warm, and heavy. The long forgotten staffs are rolled away with an impatient shove as Shiro’s knees spread Keith’s thighs and make him shiver and moan into Shiro’s hungry mouth.

There’s a rigid length of Shiro’s cock against his hip that Keith practically wriggles around to slot against his, and when it does, there’s the delicious press of friction that’s not enough, buffered by too many layers, and utterly perfect. They both break away to gasp as Shiro grinds against him again, with intention.

“Ahhh, fuck. That’s good,” are the only words he’s capable of voicing. Wordsmith, he is not, but he’s always preferred action more anyhow, so he wraps his legs around Shiro’s hips to give him the leverage to raise his hips and press back. “Why, uh, didn’t we do this before?”

They could have been doing this always.

There’s reasons. They’re even good ones. At any other time, Keith thinks a calm and composed Shiro would be very capable of listing each and every last one of them in excruciating detail, but all Keith gets now, this disheveled and flushed and lust-glazed version of the same is a slurred, “I don’t know. We’re idiots,” before he sneaks a hand between their bodies, slipping beneath the waistband of Keith’s pants and closing his fingers around his cock, already leaking enough to make the slide easy and slick. “You’re so beautiful like this.”

“God, please,” Keith moans before he captures Shiro’s mouth again, hands scrambling to find purchase in Shiro’s clothes, then, deciding they were impossible, desperately works to get his hands beneath them to touch all the scarred ridges and planes of his skin.

The sound of someone clearing their throat is louder than a ship breaking atmosphere. “...Admiral, I’m sorry to disturb you.”

Keith groans and lets his head smash back against the floor. It only hurts a little, buffered by the mat. He’s too frustrated to even be mortified.

Shiro sighs into his neck, an exasperated and resigned puff of warm air that tickles against Keith’s skin. But most importantly, Shiro hasn’t leapt away from Keith like an infection. It makes him feel warm inside, a soft rosy glow that’s gentles the furious blaze pumping through his blood.

“What is it?” Shiro asks in an admirably level tone. His hand has stilled around Keith’s cock but he hasn’t removed it, his palm is still hot and slick enough that Keith can’t help shifting his hips upwards. Shiro raises his head and gives Keith sly look before tightening his fingers just ever so, and it’s fantastic.

Over the bow of Shiro’s back, Keith spies Veronica standing in the doorway of the gym, not looking the least bit perturbed by their entanglement. With Lance as her brother, she's probably witnessed any number of more horrifying sights. “Our satellites have picked up an incoming signal matching the readings of previous hostile visitors. ETA fifteen minutes.”

Haggar. Just the thought of her is a cold douse of water. Probably should have rescinded his earlier wishes but it’s not like they’d ever come true before now. Below him, he hears Shiro sigh again and remove his hand from Keith’s pants. “Monitor where it’s likely to hit and send out an emergency alert for evacuation to the affected areas. Inform the fleet to get to their action stations and ready the fighters. I’ll be there in five.”

“Yes, sir,” Veronica says before turning on her heel, fingers already rapidly typing away on her tablet the various messages she needs to send off.

“I know what you’re going to say, but we need to form Voltron,” Keith says as soon as Veronica leaves.

“If you know what I’m going to say, then you wouldn’t be saying that,” Shiro replies as he disengages from Keith’s body and gets to his feet, only a slightly damp patch at his groin as evidence of what had transpired at all. Keith already misses his warmth, but Shiro is every bit Earth’s Admiral now, as remote and distant as a mountain peak.

He was never like this as the Black Paladin, Keith realizes. “I would think you’d understand that these are dire circumstances. We need Voltron. We’re the only ones capable of going up against those robeasts and you know it.”

“You’re missing one of your Paladins. You couldn’t even form Voltron if you wanted to.”

“Then we go back to the old lineup. I’m sure the Lions would accept their previous Paladins. I know Red would, and Lance still won’t shut up about Blue. If you’d just step back into Black—”

“ _No_.” There’s real anger in Shiro’s eyes.

Keith’s teeth click together with how fast he shuts up.

“We can handle this on our own,” Shiro says more softly after seeing Keith’s reaction. “You can’t risk jeopardizing our agreement with the Federation.”

“The last time Atlas went directly head to head with one of those things, it didn’t go so well,” Keith says, glaring at Shiro.

“She’s come a long way since then. You’ll see.” Shiro starts walking away, leaving Keith still sprawled out on the mats and not even in the right frame of mind to enjoy the view, but before he reaches the doors, he pauses, glancing over his shoulder. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“Come with you? On Atlas?”

“I know you don’t like being sidelined.”

“Isn’t that what I’d be no matter where I was?”

“I miss you being at my side,” Shiro admits as his shoulders sink, and what can Keith say to that?

He sits up and draws his knees to his chest. “Do you regret what just happened?”

Shiro turns back around fully, and there’s a moment where Keith truly fears his answer. “I should. I know I really should.”

Keith frowns and chews on his lower lip. His incisors feel a lot sharper these days. He wants to ask, _Can it happen again?_ But there’s something still so unapproachable about Shiro like this, it makes him feel like he’s walking on thin ice. “Okay. I’ll come with.”

“Yeah?” Just a hint of tentative vulnerability, like Shiro can’t quite believe him.

“Help me up.” He holds out his hand like a challenge, wanting, aching to touch again. Anything to breach that stubborn distance that spans between them.

Shiro readily walks forward. Eager, maybe, like he’s thinking the same things as Keith. He stretches out his cybernetic hand, it extends farther than his natural one would, and easily brings Keith to his feet in one breath-stealing pull so that he nearly stumbles into the wall of Shiro’s body.

Keith wants to let himself, but something stops him at the last moment, setting him right back on his own two feet.

 

_____

 

“Incoming in three...two...one,” Veronica says.

“Civilians sheltered?” Shiro asks.

“Affirmative.”

“Confirm target.”

“Target confirmed. Galra origin. Energy absorption capabilities. It’s going for the power grid, Sir.”

“Good,” Shiro says. “Let it have its fill.”

They’re still above cloud level as they circumnavigate the Earth to reach Singapore and the view across the screens is nothing but white wisps. The monitors tell a different story, filled with multiple points of lights and one notably large angry red dot at the center.

“If it takes out the power grid, it’ll take days to get people back up and running,” Keith can’t help but point out. Isn’t the point to minimize collateral damage on a populace that can barely afford it?

“In this case, it will have been worth it,” Shiro mysteriously says.

“Approaching Singapore in twenty seconds.”

“Send out the fighters and prepare the crew for Atlas’s shift,” Shiro orders as before them, the cloud cover suddenly breaks to reveal Singapore’s sprawling urban landscape jutting out into the water.

“Yes, sir.”

“Do I need to hold onto something?” Keith asks, folding his arms across his chest and widening his stance.

“No. My girl is very smooth,” Shiro says with a fond grin down at his command station like Atlas was his favorite new bike.

“Crew’s in position,” Veronica reports. “Birds have flown from the nest.”

White flashes streak across the screen in squadron formation. Somewhere out there, Keith knows, is Griffin and his original team, first on the scene, delving right into the thick of it. He’d never thought he’d ever be jealous of Griffin for anything in his entire life and yet here they are.

“Then let’s do this,” Shiro says as his cybernetic hand makes contact with the flat blue glowing interface of Atlas. “Shifting now.”

Keith’s seen Atlas shift into its mech form several times now, but he’s never experienced it from this point of view. He feels the floor vibrate beneath his feet, through the air. It’s something alive, an energy that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He becomes very acutely aware that he’s inside a sentient being like he never has before.

It’s not really anything like being in Black or forming Voltron. Maybe because Atlas isn’t at all a familiar entity to him. Maybe because he doesn’t have the connection to her like Shiro does. Keith doesn’t know. He just feels like he’s being watched and judged by something unseen and vast. But Shiro is right in that aside from the change of energy in the air, there are no jarring turns or shifting ground. He could place a glass of water on the station next to him and it would barely be disturbed.

When he looks over at Shiro, he sucks in a sharp breath, having forgotten the way Shiro completely lights up like this. The way he goes stock still, more _other_ than human right now.

It doesn’t feel like he’s speaking to Shiro when he asks, “Can your fighters even handle what that thing is gonna throw at them?”

“They’ll do more than just that,” Shiro says with so much confidence that Keith just presses his lips firmly together and vows to shut up for the rest of it because he hears himself sounding like a sulky teenager—or worse, Lance—and it’s annoying even to him.

His fingers dig into his arms and he welcomes the bone deep pain. It’s hard, only having to watch. It feels useless, _he_ feels useless, just being another gawking bystander to what may be a wholesale slaughter.

He can see the creature now, creating a path of destruction through the city as it topples skyscrapers and levels whole city blocks. It’s a sickly kind of white, bipedal, and of similar build to all the previous ones of its generation, able to fatally leech energy from anything it touches. Knowing Haggar, however, he knows this one will have some nasty new surprise, will have accounted for its previous weaknesses. Haggar's a scientist at heart, eager to engage in trial and error.

The approaching squadrons draw its attention as easily as a swarm of bees. It turns and raises its hands, unleashing two beams of deadly purple energy from its palms towards them.

“They need to get out of the way!” Keith says before he can help himself.

“No they don’t,” Shiro says.

And before Keith can demand to know why, the energy beams wash over the fighters like a massive tidal wave. Only, instead of being immediately disintegrated or turned into falling pieces of wreckage to further damage the city….they’re still there. They’re fine.

They’re glowing.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Shiro grunt and nearly keel over his station. “Shiro?”

“It’s fine,” Shiro waves him off, though the strain in his voice says otherwise. “It’s just...a lot.”

“What is?” Keith asks, bewildered. “How did they take that hit?”

“Balmeran crystal plating,” Commander Holt says as he turns from his station to Keith. “Since we learned of its unique properties in absorbing and amplifying energy, we’ve taken a page from Haggar’s playbook and decided to fight fire with fire, if you will. We absorb any energy it throws at us and return fire by several magnitudes, more than it will be able to handle if my calculations are correct.”

“What’s wrong with Shiro then?”

“Ah, well,” Commander Holt hesitates, “I am given to understand the entire process heavily involves his connection to Atlas. It’s very taxing.”

“Fighters...form a perimeter,” Shiro says through gritted teeth.

“Copy that. We have it surrounded. It’s getting a bit hot in here,” comes Griffin’s voice over the speakers.

“Fire when ready.” Over the panel, Shiro’s hand clenches into a fist and before them on the screens, the world lights up a blinding vivid purple.

Keith has to shield his eyes and look away. A horrible screeching sound pierces the air, shrill enough to make more than a few of the bridge crew wince.

When the dots clear from his vision, the now smoking creature is pulsing a familiar shade of purple, right in the heart of the city.

“Shiro…” Keith croaks in warning.

Atlas swoops down, reaching out with one of its large white hands to pluck the dying robeast up like a recalcitrant child. The resounding _crunch_ when Atlas closes her hand around the creature, however, is far more chilling.

Then, it’s over. Just like that. Quick, surgical, and clean.

Someone lets out a victorious whoops and the bridge breaks out in cheers and applause.

Keith glances over at Shiro, who looks as if he’s about to collapse. Alarmed, he moves to his side until he’s in a position to easily catch Shiro should he fall, touching the small of his back. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. I’m fine, Keith, really.” Shiro smiles tiredly at him, but his eyes are still dazed and unfocused. This is nothing at all like after using the teludav. “I’m just a little….” He makes a gesture that Keith doesn’t know how to interpret. “I just need a short break, and then I’ll be good as new.”

Keith still doesn’t understand, but the way Shiro makes an effort to stand straighter and pin his shoulders back forestalls any other concerning questions. Knowing his cue, he discreetly moves away just enough to leave a respectable space between them.

“Great job today, everybody,” Shiro tells his crew. “Especially to our fighters on the front lines, our Atlas crew who keeps us in the air, our team who coordinated with Singaporean officials to evacuate their citizens quickly and safely, and of course, to Commander Holt for his tireless research.”

More cheers and applause spring up. People clap each other on the back, shake each other’s hands. Someone even dares to ruffle Commander Holt’s hair. The joy and relief are palpable. Keith gets it, yearns to be apart of that sense of accomplishment but...today’s win is not his win. It’s not his anything.

“Today is a momentous occasion,” Shiro continues once the din dies down and all eyes have returned to him once more. “I always had faith in you, but I’m glad you finally have irrefutable proof yourselves: there’s more than just one defender of the universe now.”

In the renewed cheers, Shiro spares a glance his way.

And for the first time, Keith can’t quite get a read on it.

“And Earth,” Shiro announces, not looking away, “can and will take care of her own.”


	4. Chapter 4

The moment Shiro walks off the bridge and the doors slide shut, he stumbles, saved from completely falling into a crumpled heap by the strength of his arm and Keith, who had trailed closely behind him, rushing to his aid.

“Yeah, you’re absolutely fine, of course you are,” Keith grumbles as he shoulders more of Shiro’s weight when he peels him back from the wall.

“Just takes some time to adjust,” Shiro mutters.

“Adjust what?”

“Boundaries. Body. Having them.”

Which...doesn’t make much more sense. Keith peers suspiciously at Shiro’s face. His pupils are still blown. “And how often does this happen?”

“...eh.”

Exasperated, Keith asks, “Where are your quarters?”

Through discerning Shiro’s half-slurred directions, Keith more or less manages to drag him to the Captain’s quarters. He suspects they aren’t taking the fastest route, but leave it to Shiro to know all the back passages where he’d least be likely to run into anyone.

Shiro’s room is decently sized but utterly sterile and, from the looks of it, rarely used. Keith keeps the lights off and hobbles over to the compact bed, dumping Shiro onto it, who goes down heavy like a rock and nearly takes Keith with him.

“Sorry,” Shiro says, rubbing his face with his hand. “Usually handle this myself.”

Fed up with all the ambiguity, Keith straightens with a huff. “What are you handling? Tell me what’s going on.”

Shiro takes his time before speaking again. It’d be annoying from anyone else, but Keith knows he’s thinking carefully of his words. “Atlas is a big ship.”

Or maybe not. “You don’t say.”

“Shut up.” But Shiro smiles a little. “I mean... _big_. Big ship. Big...uh, being. I thought Black was this immense entity who’d been around for thousands of years, but we bonded so quickly and it was almost too easy in hindsight. The only difficulty I ever had with her was trying to break through Zarkon’s control.”

But in the end, Keith’s the one who took Black away from him. He bites his lip, looks away.

“Atlas is so young and so much...it’s like trying to hold onto an ocean sometimes. Or a very large, powerful child. But we’re getting better together. We guide each other. We both just have so much to learn.”

That’s understandable, at least. Or Keith thinks he understands it a little better now. But not about what just happened on the bridge. “What were you doing during the battle? And what did Commander Holt mean, about you and the fighters?”

Shiro almost looks like he regrets ever speaking in the first place. “When we improved the fighters’ energy source, we discovered that Atlas was able to form a connection to them as well.”

“...so you’re saying…” Keith asks slowly, “...Atlas can control the fighter jets?” 

“If it’s necessary. I don’t do it lightly.”

“But you’ve done this before. How many times? You seem to have your little aftercare routine down pat. Shiro...there were over a hundred fighters out there.” The implication is a little horrifying, actually. “You could have killed yourself, for one.”

Shiro lifts a hand without opening his eyes. “Stop. Please. Let’s not...I don’t want to argue about this right now.”

“Do your pilots even know what you’re doing? Because if it was my ship, I wouldn’t want my control of it able to be taken away—”

“Black could take over your flying at any time.”

“That’s completely different! Black isn’t a person, Shiro.”

“Neither is Atlas.”

“It’s not Atlas, it’s you!” Keith says. “You’re the one using Atlas to do it.”

“The pilots and crew were fully aware, Keith, okay?” Shiro lifts his head just enough to glare at him. “Does that make you feel better? We needed Atlas’s power for amplification. They knew and they consented to the plan, you can ask any one of them if you don’t believe me.”

In retrospect, Keith feels a little foolish for thinking...he doesn’t know what, exactly. Something that falls somewhere between anger and accusation.

He overreacted. He doesn’t apologize for it though.

Nor does Shiro expect him to either, which is probably why Keith hasn’t driven him away yet. After a beat, Shiro dryly asks, “Should I be flattered or insulted that you’d think I’d just...try to take over a hundred fighter jets with my brain?”

“You could do it,” Keith says. “If you really wanted to.”

Shiro scoffs. “My brain would likely ooze out my ears.”

“Like that would deter you if you felt it was important.”

“Are you implying that I have a martyr streak?”

“At least five miles wide.” Keith can’t help the note of fondness and annoyance that seeps into his voice.

“I remember someone thinking he was the reason why the Galra were tracking us and running off alone.” 

“I wasn’t alone,” Keith argues.

“And then taking off after a team member’s evil clone who had just betrayed him on what was surely going to be a one-way trip, all under some notion that I still don’t understand.”

They were really getting into this now. Fine. “At the time, I thought he was still you. That Haggar was controlling you. I wasn’t just going to leave you behind. I wouldn’t have done that to anyone, and neither would you.”

He used to wonder sometimes, in those long months of traveling slowly through space, where Shiro spent whole days simply staring at nothing, had seemed more like a person haunting a body than a conscious human being, if Shiro wished Keith hadn’t saved him after all.

Every time the thought crossed his mind, a hard stone would form in the pit of his stomach and then Keith would ruthlessly weed out any traces of it before it could make deeper roots. They’d all been through a lot. They just needed more time.

And anyway, in the end, it had all worked out, because Shiro is here now, turning his head, regarding him, finally clear eyed and focused. “Aren’t we a pair.”

“You seem better.”

“Just a light headache now. I’ll be fine.”

Keith’s gaze travels around the room, looking for something more he can do or say instead of just awkwardly shuffling his feet at the foot of Shiro’s bed.

“You can stay,” Shiro says. “If you want.”

Keith finally looks back at him.

“It’s not exactly a large bed, but there’s room for one more.” As if to make a point, Shiro shifts over to one side, nearly touching the wall. It looks more inviting than it has any right to be.

“I should let you rest,” Keith wavers.

“I recall I seem to sleep better with you close by.”

He’s not wrong. Movie nights that ran too long back at the Garrison. Bone-deep exhaustion after battle so that it was all they could do to stumble to the closest room and sling their limbs over each other in a haphazard pile. In the small, limited confines of Black in the deepest reaches of space, when Shiro’s nightmares would wake them all up, and while he profusely apologized, Keith would just shuffle over to the one bed and crawl in next to him while his wolf would curl up across both their legs, and it would be a peaceful, undisturbed night after that.

Like an echo of these memories, Keith crawls up onto the bed and curls up on his side, facing Shiro, gravitating towards his warmth. This time, though, he lays a hand across Shiro’s chest, feeling the cool slickness of his flight suit. Shiro immediately responds by covering his hand with his own. It gives him the small burst of confidence he needs to ask, “Are you disappointed in me?”

The question seems to throw Shiro off. He furrows his brows. “What do you mean?”

“What you said on the bridge earlier. You made it sound like...like Voltron failed you. Like we failed you.”

If anything, Shiro’s frown grows deeper. “I don’t think that. I could never think that.”

“We didn’t know it wasn’t you...all that time. We _did_ fail you. We should have done more. We should have known.”

“Do you blame the rest of the team for failing as well?”

“No,” Keith says immediately. “No, why would I—”

“Then what makes you different?”

“Because...because they don’t know you like I do.”

“You know, it took awhile, but I do remember everything he experienced. The thing is...up until Haggar’s direct commands, it wasn’t like watching a stranger taking over my life, doing the things I wouldn’t do or say. It was like it happened to me. He feels like me.” Shiro gently peels Keith’s hand from his chest, turning it up and brushing his lips across his palm. “And if I can’t tell the difference, how could you?”

He doesn’t know how to respond. How to insist that _still_ , somehow, it was his fault, so he just presses his hand to Shiro jaw, caressing, marveling at how smooth it is, how Shiro’s eyes fall half closed in contentment like a big cat.

Then Shiro huffs out a small laugh, his cheek curving into Keith’s hand.

“What?” Keith asks. “What is it?”

“Just thinking about your question. It’s the complete reverse. I’m not disappointed in you. I...only ever wanted to make you proud.”

“Me?” This time it’s Keith’s turn to frown in puzzlement.

“That I can still be useful in this fight, even if I can’t be a part of Voltron anymore. That I can protect our home. Protect you.”

“For fuck’s sake, Shiro. That’s really what you think?” Keith says, because, really? All this time? “You’re the best man I’ll ever know.”

Shiro’s gaze softens like twilight, caught somewhere between amazement and incredulity. Keith wants to kiss him again. So he does, long and slow.

Shiro responds immediately, breathing in, opening up and sliding his arms around Keith’s waist. His big palms, metal and otherwise, nearly span the length of Keith’s ribs. When they slide lower, hips, then the swell of his ass, what was supposed to be comforting and reassuring easily tips over into _need_. Keith practically crawls on top of Shiro and pushes him down onto the bed with a heady sensation of power, like he’s tamed a great beast. 

“You were…” he mutters between the spare moments of space he gets when their lips part, cool air sliding over his moistened lips like a jolt to remind him, “...supposed to be resting.”

“I am resting,” Shiro says before his teeth scrape down the line of Keith’s jaw, lightly stinging, and then find his neck and it’s—okay, that’s a thing. Keith shivers and moans like it’s an involuntary reaction. He can practically feel Shiro’s grin against his skin as he does it again. “This is very restful.”

“If this is restful, I’m clearly doing something wrong.” He’s not particularly concerned, though, not with the way Shiro’s lips are swollen and his gaze has reclaimed their dazed gleam. He wants to break this man’s own self-restraint, apparently more than he’s worried for his health. “Hold still.”

It takes an heroic effort to break contact with Shiro’s mouth on any part of him, but Keith soldiers on, because he has a greater purpose in life: sliding down Shiro’s body to suck his cock. He can see its rigid outline through the seamless conformity of Shiro’s wonderfully fitted flight suit, mouths at it, imagining his lips around its fullness, its warmth and weight. Above him, Shiro’s breath hitches, almost too quiet to catch, save for Keith’s more-than-human hearing.

He encounters his first challenge all too soon: trying to figure out how to get Shiro out of said flight suit. No hidden zips or buttons or snaps anywhere. Keith takes back every positive thought he’s had about it.

The flight suit is demonic and the incarnation of all things evil and wrong.

“How do you even go to the bathroom in this thing?” Keith finally asks when he all but considers trying to gnaw a hole in it with his teeth.

Instead of an answer, Keith feels Shiro’s body lightly shake beneath him.

Because Shiro is laughing at him.

He’s trying for a sexy mood, and this is what he gets.

“I’m serious. It’s not funny. Shiro.” He jabs Shiro in the ribs for good measure. “Shiro, come on.”

There’s a brilliant grin stretched across Shiro’s. “It’s in the back. Here...let me….”

With some wordless and only a little awkward coordination, Keith lets up enough for Shiro to sit up and turn a little to give Keith the access he demands. At first, Keith wants to accuse Shiro of being a damn liar, because there is no zipper, but... _oh_. It’s very deviously hidden within an almost invisible seam.

Shiro’s back is revealed to him first, every flayed and scarred inch of it, like a topographical map of his hard won experience. It very suddenly occurs to Keith that he’s actually never seen Shiro without his shirt ever since his escape pod crash-landed on Earth. _Years_. There are the visible scars on Shiro’s face and arms to have given enough indication. His fingers have grazed and felt what was there. He logically understands what all that time in the arena has to have done. But he’s never seen it for himself, the irrefutable and harsh reality.

When he tries to push the suit off Shiro’s shoulders, Shiro rests a hand over his to stop it. “I feel I should warn you. It doesn’t get better.”

Shiro isn’t looking at him. There’s a firm set to his jaw, like he’s bracing for the blow. 

“You’re an idiot if you think after all we’ve been through, a few battle scars could ever make me stop wanting you.” He waits until Shiro meets his gaze again before slipping the suit over his shoulder and slowly leaning down to kiss the curve of his shoulder.

“More than a few,” Shiro says, but it’s more for the sake of making a point, because he always has to have the last word.

The front of him, when Keith slowly pulls down the top half of the suit, is worse. The scars are not roguishly attractive or artful—they’re gruesome and every single one of them was designed to hurt or an attempted killing blow, some clearly almost successful too. They're uneven and discolored depending on the method used to inflict them. Some are very deep gouges into his skin that can never be refilled, pockmarked and cratered like a leveled city. Some are raised like waves, swirled across the surface like stained marble.

All together it’s...a lot to take in, a breathtakingly horrid painting with an untold amount of agony crafted behind every stroke.

Shiro is studying his face, his expression as blank as a canvas. “Too much? I can find a shirt.”

Keith wishes Sendak were still alive just so he could make his death much slower. He wants to jump in Black and track Haggar down now. He wants to make her feel every ounce of pain and suffering and brutality she’s ever inflicted on this man beneath him. He wants her to _hurt_ for ever daring to hurt Shiro. A thousand fold.

Instead, Keith stretches out his hands and skims his shaking fingers down Shiro’s chest. “How much sensation do you have?” He lightly pinches a small nipple, feeling it harden between his fingers.

“ _Much_.” Shiro’s eyes darken. 

“Good,” Keith says, kissing a scar that lines Shiro’s collarbone, running his tongue over its rough ridges.

Shiro lets him at it, tipping his chin up to expose the long lines of his throat, his bobbing Adam’s apple, the way it jumps when Keith’s teeth digger harder into the delicate flesh there or when his tongue draws hot lines against the grooves in the definition of his musculature and his lips feel his rapid pulse beating beneath his skin. He leans into Keith’s mouth and hands like a preening, touch hungry creature.

Finally, Shiro drags Keith up by his hair to kiss him hungrily, desperately, until Keith nearly forgets what he’s been meaning to do, pulled into Shiro’s wet mouth, his tongue, his lips, held there by his big hands. But in the back of his mind, he can sense Shiro trying to take over again, reassert control, like an invisible force that compelled others to submit to his indomitable will. Any other time, Keith would happily let him, but right now, it feels crucial in some way he can’t pinpoint that he doesn’t.

He takes the next opportunity for air to gently disengage himself from Shiro’s dominating hand and mouth, and tugs at the now bunched up suit around Shiro’s waist, urging it further down. 

“I, ah, haven’t voluntarily done this in awhile, so set your expectations low,” Shiro say. Half-jokingly, but it’s there, just a glimpse of something uneasy stirring beneath the placid surface, and Keith sees it. He’s nervous.

“I never expected I’d ever get this in the first place. Far as I’m concerned, things are already looking up,” Keith says, maybe a little too jocular. It must be the reassurance Shiro needs, though, because he helps Keith out by raising his hips and letting Keith pull the material down his thighs, taking his black boxer briefs with it as he goes. 

His skin is smoother here, pale and unblemished. A few more scars striped across the skin, some uncomfortably close to his femoral arteries, but they’re only passing observances now, noted and filed away for later processing in favor of the more obvious attraction.

“You’re so fucking pretty.” Shiro’s dick is hard and long and _pretty_ , as pretty as the rest of him, arcing towards his flat stomach, pooling moisture just above where the neat nest of white curls begins. It’s ideal in all ratios and proportions, long and thick without being concerning, mostly smooth. Keith doesn’t usually have a thing for dicks or anyone’s junk, really. The function was always more alluring than the design. He has a thing for Shiro’s dick though. The sheer aesthetics give him a moment’s pause while Shiro’s flushes for more reasons than arousal.

Keith leans down to lick a long stripe along the underside of Shiro’s dick before taking the head into his mouth, full and leaking in his mouth, salty on his tongue. He feels Shiro sigh and goes piant beneath him, his hands clutching and wrinkling the top cover before fluttering to the top of Keith’s head, lightly touching.

“ _Keith_.” Just his name, a breathy sigh, but he’s never heard it spoken this way before, like a desperate prayer. He wants to hear it said that way again and again.

Shiro’s hands tighten in his hair by degrees as Keith slides his mouth down further, taking more of Shiro in. Can’t fit it all. The blunt head batters the back of his throat, threatening to set off his gag reflex when he moves just a little too eagerly, but that’s alright too. He can suck harder than a black hole and apply his tongue to all of Shiro’s most sensitive spots to see what different kinds of noises Shiro can choke back. What his mouth can’t cover, his hand does, circling the base, reaching lower to cup his balls, rolling each one between his fingers, pressing against the soft skin behind them to see if Shiro likes that too.

Like discovering how a new ship’s controls work, he’s got a real knack for it, could maybe get off on the thrill of it alone. Where to move his hands, his tongue, how much pressure to apply, when. What makes Shiro gasp despite himself, what makes his hips thrust up like involuntary reflex, almost choking Keith, what makes him cry out and then quickly clench his teeth like he wishes he could take it back. He likes it when Shiro tries to restrain himself and loses that battle, hips thrusting up in small, rhythmic motions, fingers tugging on Keith’s hair, releasing, then tightening again. It’s worth the growing ache in his lips that cover his teeth.

True to his word as ever, Shiro doesn’t last long. One warning grip that stings a little on Keith’s scalp and a rushed out, “I’m going to—” He tries to pull Keith away, but Keith just digs his fingers into Shiro’s hips and sucks harder and that’s it. Shiro makes this beautiful, inarticulate cry and more bitterness floods Keith’s mouth that he gamefully swallows down without really tasting.

Keith eases off gradually, takes the opportunity to study Shiro in his utterly unguarded, sex-stupid afterglow, and it’s everything he hoped it would be and more. Shiro is usually so tightly wound, but he’s doing his best impression of a puddle on the bed, staring up at Keith through half slitted eyes, a dopey smile lazing across his mouth. “Your lips are swollen,” he says stupidly, and Keith can’t help but crawl back up to kiss him with them.

And, fuck, if it isn’t hot to have Shiro tonguing his own come out of Keith’s mouth, lapping up every last trace.

Keith’s almost forgets his own hard, aching cock until Shiro’s hand inevitably finds it and squeezes through the damp material. It makes Keith wince and moan at the same time, need flaring up in him like someone feeding oxygen into a fire.

“I can return the favor,” Shiro offers with an eagerness that Keith wants to explore but...later.

He’s too close and on edge now, has been pretty much stuck with some grade of arousal since the gym, and can’t draw this out any longer. “Just let me…” Instead of finishing that thought, he just frees his own dick from the sweatpants he’s still wearing, starting up a steady, increasingly slicker series of strokes. “Fuck, I‘m good like this.”

Shiro’s gaze is intent and wholly focused on his dick. He smells like sweat and his flight suit and sex. Keith’s puffing hot little breaths of exertion against his cheek that stutter when Shiro’s hand pushes his own out of the way and resumes where he leaves off, and it’s orders of magnitude better. The pressure, the damp warmth, the way Shiro’s thumb runs over the head on every upstroke. “Feels good,” Keith moans into Shiro’s neck and bites down into his skin because it does feel so damn good and he doesn’t know what else to do with himself. It’s been a long, long time for him too.

Climax hits him harder than expected, painful almost. His hips buck into Shiro’s hand and he cries out into the wet mess he’s made of Shiro’s neck while making a bigger one across his stomach and chest.

He just remembers not to collapse into said mess, swerving at the last moment to fall into the space next to Shiro instead, still mostly crowding him though. Not much to look up at the ceiling while he tries to collect his breath and his wits, save for counting the number of panels there are.

When Keith turns his head, his attention immediately settles on the red, spit-shiny ring at Shiro’s throat that is located far above what his uniform’s collar will conceal, and he can’t bring himself to feel an ounce of remorse over it. Hell, half the Garrison already thought he’d been fucking Shiro for special privileges anyway ever since he first enlisted.

“I hate when we argue,” Shiro says, turning and catching his eye. “But I don’t mind them ending like this.”

Shiro is trying to keep it lighthearted, but he hits it a little too much on the head. They argue a lot more now. They’ve never argued this much before. Well, Keith tends to argue with everyone almost constantly. But not with Shiro. That’s not how it’s supposed to be.

He shifts and curls back into Shiro’s body, his hand sliding up along Shiro’s chest, avoiding the mess of his own come, tracing the peaks and troughs of his scars. He’s almost lost this man, time and time again. No more. Never again. “Let’s just skip to the end from now on then.”

Shiro takes his hand. His is still tacky with Keith’s come. It’s kind of gross, and they both look ridiculous in their varying states of partial undress, but it’s also really nice to be able to touch this freely, to be touched back. “Agreed.”

He resolves to do better. He thinks Shiro does too.

 

_____

 

Keith doesn’t want to think that because he now has a way of regularly getting off, things start going a lot more smoothly, it’s just coincidence. It’s just that the days don’t seem so impossible when he has Shiro’s bed and Shiro to return to (that is, when Keith can drag him away from attempting to read a week’s worth of reports in one sitting). Waking up sweating with the blankets all pushed down because Shiro has unconsciously wrapped the bulk of himself around Keith sometime in the night puts him in a far better mood to face the day’s worth of tedious classes and even more trying students. And if he needs some way to vent his mounting frustrations...well, he can simply mount Shiro instead, who, ever supportive, very enthusiastically encourages such alternative outlets.

It’s why, when the wolf, Pidge, and him are on the video call with Lance and Hunk, who are at different ends of the world, he’s not even in that bad of a mood. Though it takes Lance to point that out, which makes Keith scowl for the principle of it.

“I was never in a bad mood,” he denies, eyes narrowing at Lance’s serene expression. “I was frustrated by our unfair sentence. There’s a difference.”

“Uh, yeah sure, dude. I mean, I know you’re not exactly Mr. Sunshine to begin with, but you seriously had a bug up your ass,” Lance says. “Anyway, what I was _trying_ to say is that you seem better, is all. And I’m glad for it.”

He sounds sincere, if a little affronted. Keith sighs. “I’m sorry. I...yeah, okay. Fine. Things weren’t great, but they’re better now. I’m getting used to it. And...the classes aren’t that bad.” It’s painful to admit.

“Ooooh, did they do the assignment with three-sixty review yet?” Hunk asks. “I loved that one. It’s always so nice hearing what people actually think about you.”

Lance bites his lip. “I don’t think Keith’s gonna have the same experience, Hunk.”

“How’s everything on your end with your family?” Pidge asks, blessedly changing the subject. Keith could hug her.

“Really great!” Hunk enthuses, his whole face coming alive with the kind of joy Keith is privately envious of. “My mom and I have been comparing notes on some family recipes. I got her some of the space equivalents I’ve found. She’s been helping me to improve on them too! We had this funny idea, after all of this is over, we could, like, I dunno, maybe start up Earth’s first intergalactic restaurant. A chain of them. Guys, I could be a franchise.”

“Hunkdonalds does have a nice ring to it,” Lance says.

“That’s awesome, Hunk,” Pidge says. “We get the friends and family discount, right?”

“Why would you even have to ask?” Hunk smiles warmly. “The Paladins of Voltron, former and current, will always be welcome at any restaurant on any planet.” 

“Hunkdonalds!”

“Lance, no.”

“What? It’s already a classic.”

“It’s not a classic.”

Keith tries to dredge up a smile, but it’s difficult to make it genuine. He’s a creature of the present and instinct. In some ways, it’s the cause of all his impulsive decisions. React, worry about the consequences later when they come. It saves his life in the heat of battle more times than he can count, but that imperative comes less and less these days.

He’s not like Pidge or Hunk or even Lance, with their goals and ambitions that were formed long before they ever stepped foot in the Garrison and their intentions to resume pursuing them after the war is done. Like the war is just a waystop for their real journey, a diversion they need to settle before life can finally get back to the business.

The problem is that this _is_ his life. This is where he’s found his purpose, who he truly is. He’s never really given a lot of thought about what comes after. After the end of the war. After Haggar is defeated for good. After Voltron. He wouldn’t even know where to begin.

It’s terrifying.

“Well, I’m glad you’re all having a nice time,” Lance says, a grateful distraction from the darkening spiral of Keith’s thoughts. “Meanwhile, I’m having a crisis over here.”

Their faces immediately sober into concern. “What happened?” Keith asks.

“Let’s just say Kaltenecker’s introduction to the family hasn’t gone as smoothly as I hoped,” Lance sighs. “I guess she’s a bit older than we thought. She stopped producing milk and now there’s talk of eating her.”

The news is met with a round of silenced horror.

“Well. I mean. You kind of do live on a farm, Lance. I guess it’s...practical?” Pidge tries, but can’t help wincing at her own reasoning.

“Kaltenecker is a beloved pet! When Kosmo gets old, it’s not like Keith is going to start planning the Christmas roast.”

“That’s disgusting. I would never do that!” Keith practically spits, scowling at Lance for even making the suggestion. Ears attuned to the name (even though it's _not_ his name), the wolf, who is far from what anyone would consider a lap dog, blinks into existence right in Keith’s lap so that he almost topples over in his chair. The wolf smells like some unholy combination of garbage and dead animal and Keith doesn't want to know what he’s gotten up to around the Garrison while Keith’s been forced to go back to school. Choking on the stench, he coughs out a tuft of fur and attempts to maneuver around the massive bulk to peer back at the screen, giving his wolf reassuring scratches behind his ears. “Lance didn’t mean it. Lance is just a jerk.”

“Hey!” Lance says.

“Ugh, Keith.” Pidge leans away from them as far as she can, her hand covering her nose and making her next words slightly muffled. “Give Kosmo a bath!”

“He’s a wolf. He’s supposed to smell like that,” Keith automatically defends, even if he sort of agrees with her.

“He literally has never smelled like that before,” Pidge says.

“He was probably just curious about what was on Earth,” Hunk reasons. “I bet there’s all sorts of exciting new scents around.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the one who has to smell him right now,” Pidge says. “But if you want, he can be there in a flash.”

Hunk laughs nervously. “No thank you. I like my meals to stay inside of me after I’ve just eaten them.”

“To be honest, I’m looking forward to getting back to training,” Lance says in a low voice like he’s trying to keep someone nearby from overhearing. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my family and all, but….”

“You have a new purpose now,” Keith says, relieved that someone else finally gets it too.

“....but I really think they’re going to turn Kaltenecker into hamburgers,” Lance finishes. “I need to bring her back to the safety of the Garrison.”

Of course. Keith keeps himself from rolling his eyes. “Lance, Hunk, enjoy the rest of the time with your families. We’ll see you in ten days weeks for training.”

“I hope Allura, Romelle, and Coran are doing okay,” Pidge says once the video monitors go dark. “Stupid quantum abyss.”

Teludavs could only get them so far before the rest of the trip had to be taken slowly and carefully around said quantum abyss. Makes for a well-protected secret Altean colony, but it also makes communications next to impossible until the Federation could establish the necessary series of satellites powerful enough to withstand the irregularities the abyss caused, which wasn’t exactly high up on the list of priorities. Keith gives the wolf a few more broad stroke down his back and tries to breathe through his mouth. “They promised to get in contact when they can.”

“I know. And I know a week and a half isn’t that long anyway,” Pidge says, then looks at him contemplatively. “Were you telling the truth earlier? Classes were really getting better? Or just the hot sex?”

Keith makes a sound that falls somewhere between a gurgle and a yelp. The wolf perks his ears and hops down off him, giving Keith a confused look as if to say he didn’t know humans could produce such strange noises. “ _Katie_.”

Pidge just arches a brow, unimpressed. “Oh please. It’s a big base, but it’s not that big. And everyone talks. You’ve all but moved into the Admiral’s quarters. That didn’t go unnoticed.”

“It’s not like that.” It’s exactly like that.

And Pidge knows he knows it too. “Ooookay. If you say so. It would just be nice if, you know, you told the team yourself when they got back before they have to hear it from the masses.”

“There’s nothing to tell!”

“I mean, we all sort of thought you two were a thing long before all this anyway, and we couldn’t decide if you were really good at keeping it a secret or really bad at it.”

Keith frowns in confusion. “What?”

“So nobody said anything because there was no conclusive proof either way and we wanted to respect your privacy when we all had to live out of each other’s pockets,” Pidge continues. “But things are different now. And besides, you have a huge hickey on your neck.”

Keith’s hand flies to his neck as if covering the evidence now will render it obsolete, but the skin feels smooth and unblemished under his hand. It doesn’t even hurt. Shiro likes to suck and bite Keith there like he’s an especially tasty chew toy, but never so hard as to leave a long lasting mark, even if Keith has maybe encouraged him to do it on more than one occasion.

Belatedly, he realizes he’s been had.

Pidge smirks. “For the record, I said you guys were really bad at hiding it.”

 

_____

 

In today’s class, they’re put into teams of five, and already Keith’s expectations for this day being okay, if not great, begin to dwindle. Teams mean group work, except he’s long since learned that group work in a classroom setting really just means one person doing all the heavy lifting while having to act gracious and give false credit to the rest. He scowls at his fellow team members, a communications specialist, an engineer, and two wannabe fighter pilots, to make sure they know that they’re going to pull their weight if he has anything to say about it.

Then Commander Holt begins distributing, of all things, uncooked pasta noodles, a string, a few strips of tape, and a marshmallow. What the fuck.

“This may seem like a childish game. Even a facile one,” Commander Holts tells them, “But you’d be surprised how poorly adults do.”

The purpose is seemingly simple: using only the materials given to them, each team was challenged to build the tallest freestanding structure that would support the weight of the entire marshmallow. They had exactly 20 minutes to make it happen.

“I’ll make the deal even sweeter,” Commander Holt adds. “Next week, I’m assigning all classes to washing duty for our MFEs. The winning team gets out of it.”

That’s another thing Keith hates about these classes: all the manual labor they make them do under the guise of building some sort of ideal character or something, but is, what Keith suspects, just a way of saving money on janitorial staff.

Still, a chance to get out of washing the hundreds of fighters that existed in the fleet? Sign him up.

One would think having an engineer on the team would make this challenge entirely pointless, except that when the clock officially starts, an anxious energy settles over the room, and everyone just loses their damn minds.

“Look, I got it, I got it, if we just build it like this see, give it a wide, strong base to begin with—”

“We don’t have enough pasta for that. We have to compromise some of that load bearing structure for height here. It’s not like a fucking marshmallow weighs _that_ much.”

“And it’s not like pasta is steel rebar. Look, I’m telling you, I know how these things work. The triangle is one of the strongest geometric shapes.”

“Come on, already! Other teams are already starting!”

Keith’s had enough. He grabs a few pieces of the pasta and just starts...taping things together in a way he thinks will be sturdy.

“Keith, what are you doing?” the comms specialist asks in horror. O’Reilly, Keith thinks. Cynthia O’Reilly. “No, no, no, that’s not going to work!”

“At least I’m doing something,” Keith says. “Instead of sitting around here all day arguing about it. You can either help me out or shut up about it.”

Whether they’re finally motivated by his admittedly less than leaderly words or they want to salvage their project from further damage, his team joins in. They bicker about whether to use the tape or string. Reinforcing with two pasta sticks or three. A cube shape or pyramid. Greater height or superior structure. Keith loses his cool a few more times and barely manages from snapping all the pasta in half out of spite for the whole thing.

By the time the 20 minutes are up, they end up with some weird amalgamation of all their arguments. It’s not very tall, but it supports its marshmallow without struggle. Looking around the room, Keith is pleased to note that most of the teams haven’t fared much better, and some had flat out failed. They aren’t the winners, but they are in the top percentile.

It's good enough.

Or it is until Commander Holt goes around the room, making diagnoses of everyone’s behavior under pressure and what it means in terms of leadership.

“Mr Kogane, you took the initiative to get the challenge started where the rest of your team was too afraid of failure to even begin, but that common fear is something you should be reassuring for, not criticizing. In the end, it was your teammates’ contributions who helped you all to succeed. You all have a good sense of your own worth, which gives you resiliency, but that may not always be the case.”

The words might as well be a direct shot to his sternum. Keith remembers the first few weeks of being the Black Paladin, almost getting his team killed. He can’t meet Commander Holt's eyes any longer.

He knows he’s come a long way since then. Some days, he can look back on everything he’s done and even feel a sense of accomplishment. The proof is in his team and what they can do together. He trusts them and they trust him implicitly. 

But many days, days like today, he feels like an imposter who went all in on the final round with a bad hand and a desperate sense of hope, and someone’s called his bluff. That maybe his team only tolerates and follows him now because Shiro wanted them to. That maybe, a quiet insidious voice whispers, Keith is still the same as he ever was, just with more delusions of grandeur.

Later, they’re in Shiro’s discomfitingly shrine-like quarters that Keith mostly tries to ignore, spending their post-dinner hours on the cheap, uncomfortable couch that had long ago lost most of its padding and still bore a few questionable stains that not even the most powerful industrial washers could remove.

Shiro sits on the one end of the couch he usually does and Keith takes up his usual position laid out along the rest of it with his head pillowed on one of Shiro’s thick thighs. They’re both ostensibly working, Shiro catching up on the administrative part of his job and Keith trying to make a dent in the massive amounts of assigned reading he’s supposed to have done last week. It’s just that he can only take in so many silly buzzwords before his attention begins to wander, and Shiro’s cybernetic hand is just idly stroking through Keith’s hair in a distracting manner, so Keith trades the blurry view on his tablet for staring up at Shiro instead: a far preferable view.

There’s a line forming between Shiro’s furrowed brows that’s going to deepen with age if he keeps doing it, which he will. Same for the little squinting lines around his eyes that speak of future appointments with the optometrist. No, Shiro will soldier through what has to be hours yet of boring reports and budget figures with as much determination as he has in battle. He’ll actually really read and understand them, because he takes his responsibilities seriously.

“See something you like?” Shiro asks without looking away from his reading.

“Plenty.” Keith leers, but it bounces off Shiro completely. He contemplates turning his head and nuzzling the very tempting bulge so close to him, but Shiro reads his mind and his hand gently turns Keith’s face back before he can even so much as stretch.

“You have homework,” Shiro chastises as if Keith were a naughty school boy.

Which actually sounds like fun, come to think of it. “What will you do if I don’t do it? Spank me?”

The hopeful note in his voice finally pulls Shiro’s attention to him, only instead of gazing at Keith with fiery lust and an immediate desire to throw Keith on the floor and have his disciplinary way with him, Shiro just arches that damn brow. “Really?”

“Maybe I do deserve it. I’m already in detention, aren’t I?”

There’s a line, a nuance, he knows he’s crossed here, from playful teasing into bitterness. It finally gets Shiro to put down his tablet entirely and regard Keith with his full concern and attention. “This wasn’t actually supposed to be punishment, Keith. Is it really that bad?”

“It’s…” Keith sighs. Shiro continues to stroke his hair. It’s soothing. “It’s not bad. It’s just harder than I thought it was going to be. Some difficult things are coming out. I just need to lick my wounds for awhile. I’ll be alright.”

Shiro’s smile is a soft thing, like a gentle hand tending to those wounds until it grows suggestive, his gaze darkening into a simmer. “I changed my mind. Maybe your homework can wait.”

The melancholy mood that had settled over him condenses into something hot curling in his belly. Despite what Griffin thinks, he doesn’t enjoy stewing in his own self-loathing and misery. Not when Shiro moves his hand from Keith’s scalp down his face and throat to rake down his chest and stomach, stopping just short of his increasingly interested dick. “And what about your homework?” Keith asks.

“Priorities.”

Which is a good enough excuse for Keith, happily accepting the filthy kiss Shiro bestows when he leans down and his hand that slides into Keith’s pants.

 

_____

 

Three days later in the middle of the night, they receive their first transmission from Allura, five days ahead of schedule.

There’s a hasty assemblage in the control room. Keith didn’t even have time to change out of his sleep clothes. Pidge doesn’t look like she’s even slept, and in all likelihood, she hasn’t. He’s grateful there’s only a skeleton crew there with them because, like with any communication between Voltron members, this feels too personal to be witnessed by so many strangers. 

“Princess, is everything alright?” Shiro asks. “Are you or any other members of your party hurt?”

Keith studies Allura’s image on the screen, looking for any sign of injury or distress, but Allura looks whole, healthy. Her eyes, though, tell a different story. The last time they had looked that way, Keith recalls, had been when they had to destroy the AI program of Allura’s father.

“Yes. Yes, we’re all fine. I’m sorry we couldn’t reach out sooner.”

“It was to be expected. You’re ahead of schedule, actually,” Shiro points out.

“We reached the colony.” Allura hesitates. Just over her shoulder, a solemn Coran appears but doesn’t speak, placing a comforting hand on her back. “It’s as we feared. It’s completely destroyed.”

Keith swallows down the rise of nausea and dread in his gut. “What about the Alteans?”

Over the billions of light years that separate them, Allura meets his eyes, her face as haunted as his thoughts. “They’re gone.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I am the worst. But also, I had to break this up into two chapters, the second of which will be coming shortly.

The Garrison’s SitRep room was designed to seat every major Earth leader with more than enough standing room to accommodate their various aides. Their small party doesn’t even take up half the available seats, but the thick tension choking the air puts Keith on edge, jaw clenched and body coiled tight. After so much time of doing nothing, even this much has him ready to spring into action.

Everyone is angled to the large projection on the screen at one end of the table currently displaying a shaky video recording of the destruction left behind on the Altean colony. There’s no audio, and no one in the room speaks. Keith can make out the skeletal remains of various structures that vaguely remind him of the Castle of Lions, only these have been clearly destroyed by a barrage of firepower and what’s left is blackened by smoke.

He’s seen destroyed cities before. This doesn’t faze him as much as he probably thinks it should. What does make him uneasy, though, is how there’s no one else in the video. No huddling survivors. No bodies. Nothing living. An empty ruin.

“The strangest part is,” Allura says softly, the afterimages of destruction reflecting in her luminous eyes, “I didn’t get a sense of any fear. I think...I think this was all done very deliberately.”

It takes a long moment for them to digest the implications.

“You think the Alteans did this to their own home before they vacated it?” Shiro asks.

“I don’t know,” Allura admits, “but there was no resonance of the emotions I usually pick up on from places that have been targeted by the Galra.”

“They left willingly,” Romelle states, drawing all eyes in the room towards her. “There were so many missing personal belongings that should have been among the debris to think otherwise. And everything was destroyed except the tribute to Lotor. It’s been deca-phoebs for everyone else. I never got the chance to return and tell them about Lotor’s betrayal. They must still look up to him. Something or someone must have convinced them to leave. To fight in his honor.”

“The Altean in the first robeast…” Allura says. “You don’t believe it was done against her will?”

Romelle holds her gaze. “Not after what I’ve seen. That was Luca. I knew her well. She was always passionate. And she especially revered Lotor. She would have been the first to volunteer to fight in his name.” She blinks and looks away when her eyes become too glossy. “...I should have been there. I should never have left them.”

“Don’t think like that,” Allura says, laying a hand on her shoulder. “We were all deceived by Lotor’s charms. You were the only one courageous enough to question what he was doing. If you hadn’t come to us, we would never have known his true intentions.”

“And now we have a second Altean robeast in our custody,” Shiro says. Right. Vesna. Keith swallows back the residual shame curdling in his stomach. “Its Altean was killed during the battle, but we know before his life was severed that he would never have regained consciousness anyway. We know this is Haggar’s work. She could have convinced the Alteans to leave the colony and fight for her, whether it was for her son or via some other means of persuasion.” Despite his attempts to remain stoic, Shiro’s mouth curls down in distaste like he can’t help himself. He’s intimately familiar with Haggar’s more convincing methods. It’s not such a huge leap to suspect the Alteans had been brainwashed. “The question now becomes, where are they?”

“I’ve just started working on isolating the unique frequencies from the robeast we have,” Pidge says, adjusting her glasses out of nervous habit. “Once we get that, I should be able to trace its energy signature to its origin.”

“Good,” Shiro says. “I’ll alert the Federation that our MFEs will begin running drills tomorrow and ask if any systems would like to participate. When we locate Haggar, we’ll be ready to launch.”

“Just the MFEs?” Keith dares to ask.

When Shiro looks at him, Keith refuses to look away. “Hunk and Lance have moved up their schedules. They’ll be returning to the Garrison later today and you’ll commence team training tomorrow.”

“So when the fleet launches, Voltron will be ready.”

“That’s entirely dependent on the progress of your training and the Federation’s decision.”

He hates the way Shiro says it, all polished and careful language, like it’s tiresome that he even has to. Like Keith is trying his patience. He can feel everyone else’s stares bouncing between the two of them like a particularly riveting sporting match. “With all that bureaucracy, I don’t see that happening for months.”

“It’s late and we’re all tired,” Shiro says calmly. Evasive maneuvers, Keith knows. His unspoken message is clear: he doesn’t want to hash out this argument again here. “Vacation’s over, and we all have a lot of work ahead of us. Let’s get some rest while we can.”

Keith’s one of the first ones out of the room, Shiro not far behind him, casting a large shadow and looming presence at his back as they return to Shiro’s quarters. In the relative privacy of an empty corridor, it would usually be the time when he’d lay a hand on Keith’s shoulder and they’d talk it out, but now they don’t speak. The quality of their silence is stilted. He thinks if he glanced over his shoulder, he’d see Shiro’s grimly neutral expression that he wears when he’s unhappy.

But if Shiro won’t be the one to first extend the olive branch this time, then Keith will. His feet come to a halt and he turns. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up old arguments in front of everyone, but this is our fight too, Shiro. This is what we, as Paladins, were always meant to do.”

“I know,” Shiro sighs, suddenly looking decades older, and just as exhausted, a far cry from the pin perfect appears he strives to maintain outside the bedroom. His hastily put on uniform now bears several wrinkles and creases. His hastily combed hair rebelliously juts out in an array of directions. His face is pale with bruises beneath his eyes. “And I know you will. But Keith, I really did mean it...I’m tired. Please, can we just table this discussion for later?”

There’s a plea in his voice. Their time on the ground, Keith realizes, must have been a respite for Shiro as well. A brief moment to not have to think about violent conquering aliens and death and bloodshed, to focus on simple if tedious things like reading dry reports and approving budgets, an attractive glimpse of the day-to-day normalcy that would exist were it not for this never-ending war. The news of the Altean colony is an intrusive reminder that that reality is still crowding at their door.

“Yeah, okay,” Keith relents, and Shiro rewards him by pulling him into the broad expanse of his arms, pressing his cheek against Keith’s hair. Keith breathes in Shiro’s scent and presses his face into Shiro’s neck, brushing the tip of his nose against his steady, strong pulse. He closes his eyes and he savors.

Eventually, Shiro pulls back and they return to Shiro’s quarters where he barely has enough energy to give his wolf a cursory scratch behind the ears before trailing after Shiro to bed. Shiro sheds his uniform into careless piles on the floor before crawling into bed. He draws up behind Keith and wraps an arm around his waist. His lips brush the underside of Keith’s jaw, then his neck and the slope of his shoulder. He’s half-hard against the small of Keith’s back, and Keith’s hindbrain stirs a little in interest with the notion of a good release of tension before dropping off into sleep.

After that, it’s a clumsy, tired, almost accidental mess of hands trying to push down each other’s sleep pants to bunch around their knees, all while barely finding the energy to move. Keith reaches back and slowly strokes Shiro into full hardness while Shiro mouths at the underside of his jaw, panting wetly against his skin. His cybernetic hand wraps around Keith’s own cock in a mechanically perfect vice, moving cool and sleek as he matches Keith’s lazy pace.

Keith’s eyes stay closed. He’s sleepy but aroused, cresting on the precipice where getting off would soon take imminent priority, but for now, like this, with Shiro a comforting wall of heat at his back and his metal hand, a little too smooth to build anything more than a teasing friction, coaxing small, crackling tendrils of pleasure through his body nonetheless, is nice. The universe’s problems remain far away. He could stay like this forever.

But like all things good, it doesn’t last. Embers of lust fan up into an insistent burn. His nerves sharpen and come alive. Shiro, too, grows tense, his mouth sucking harder at Keith’s shoulder, scraping with teeth, hips pushing forward into Keith’s hand more insistently until Keith guides him between his thighs. Shiro moans and thrusts, his dick running over Keith’s taint to bluntly collide with his balls, over and over again, building slick moisture and heat, as Keith’s hand joins Shiro’s to get himself off.

It’s a long, increasingly desperate grind to get there, their hips barely moving, panting heavy in the dark, and he whines with the sheer amount of effort it takes when he’s this tired, but when they do, it’s with an almost relieved whine, and Keith ends up a wet, filthy mess from front to back.

He’s far too exhausted to bother with cleanup efforts, and for once, Shiro is too, slumping against him and drowsily burying his face in Keith’s hair. Eventually, his body goes lax, his breaths slow and deep. And yet despite how tired he is, it takes Keith much longer to follow him.

 

_____

 

He wakes up in the middle of an REM cycle far too soon after he manages to fall asleep. His head is filled with fog and his brain feels slow. Shiro’s side of the bed is empty. The situation from last night has now dried and flaked on his skin, and it’s disgusting. The daylight streaming in through the windows is defiantly cheerful and blinding, even through half-squinting eyes. Keith scowls at it.

There’s a thick briny scent in the air when he emerges from the shower, and Keith follows the trail like a red thread out of the bedroom to find another set up for a two-person breakfast consisting of whole pan fried fish, rice, and some sort of miso soup. Shiro’s childhood comforts. He must be stressed.

“Finally you’re up,” Shiro says, looking, at least, far more rested than a few hours ago. He’s changed into a freshly ironed uniform. His hair now behaves. His eyes are bright.

Keith’s only reply is an unintelligible grunt. 

Shiro bites back a smile. “Come eat. It’s going to be a busy day.”

Keith’s not quite so fond of fish for breakfast, having been raised on cheap, generic brand cereals that were the staple of his foster homes. They were easy to shovel into his mouth as fast as possible, a habit he did not part with in the Garrison nor with the nutritional convenience of food goo in the Castle.

At least there’s coffee. He doesn’t know what he’d do if Shiro only insisted on tea.

He takes his seat across from Shiro and takes on the arduous work of separating the white tender flesh from so many small delicate bones. It’s a lot of work for little pay off, in his opinion, but Shiro seems to thoroughly enjoy the precision and focus it takes, already accruing a sizable pile of white, almost translucent, fish bones on the side of his plate. Keith gives up and takes grateful swallows of coffee instead.

“Do you still have memories of Lotor?” he asks Shiro before his brain to mouth filter is fully online.

The chopsticks still in Shiro’s hand, poised like pens between his fingers. A thin, gleaming bone is pinched between the ends. “Some,” Shiro carefully admits. The bone is carefully placed alongside its brethren. “Mostly impressions. Why?”

“Just….” Keith waves his hand generally, his coffee sloshing against the side of his mug and threatening to spill over. Belatedly, he realizes he’s wandered into a minefield. “When Romelle talked about how the Alteans were fighting for him, it got me thinking about everything that happened. The Blades had a huge profile on Lotor. I guess he had a history of trying to do more than the usual conquer and enslave tactics. A lot of philanthropic stuff, restoration projects. The Blades once thought he might even make a useful ally someday. Or that he’d make for a better leader than his father.”

“It makes sense,” Shiro says, “I...recall him being incredibly arrogant but intelligent. Charismatic. Despite the awful things he did, I do believe he thought they were necessary to ultimately help his people.”

It’s a surprisingly charitable view. Incredulously so. “Help his people? He was harvesting and draining them of their quintessence.”

“Not the people I was referring to exactly.”

“But he was half Altean,” Keith points out. “Surely he would have felt _something_ for one half of his heritage. I just don’t understand how he could do that to the people he was still a part of. Look them in the eye under the guise of helping them while knowingly leading them to a gruesome end.”

“I imagine, as a prince, he was raised to identify as Galra first, maybe even to dislike the parts of himself that weren’t,” Shiro reasons. “Whatever he felt or thought about those Alteans, he probably saw it as his duty to serve the Galra Empire first.”

“So...what? Is this you defending Lotor? Trying to play Devil’s Advocate on me?” Keith arches a brow and stuffs a chunk of fish into his mouth, bones and all, just because he knows it’ll annoy Shiro. A successful act of petulance if the tick in Shiro’s cheek is anything to go by.

His hand stretches across the table to close around Keith’s wrist, the motors in the joints lightly whirl as his fingers gently tighten. “I’m not trying to justify what he did, only to say that...I guess I understand, on some level, why he made the choices he did. Most leaders don’t actually set out to make bad ones.”

“Would you have done the same?” Keith asks, that self-sabotaging drive within him taking momentary possession of his mouth. “Sacrificed one race of people to save your own?”

Shiro blinks, clearly taken aback by the question. “I’d like to think not, no.”

He shrugs carelessly. “Seems like a simple choice after all, then.”

“Now you’re just being reductionist.” But Shiro smiles, because for some reason, he’s always found Keith’s attitude, and sometimes flagrant acts of defiance, more charming than not. Keith suspects it comes from a long history of being the Golden Boy.

It’s that momentary charm he now hopes will carry him through his next ask. “Can we pick up where we left off last night?”

Shiro hides a grimace behind a careful swallow of tea. He doesn’t appear especially surprised, like he’s been waiting for it all along. “My answer hasn’t changed. It’s out of my control, Keith, because it’s not my approval you need.”

Keith sits back and bites at the inside of his lip. He’s shown up to all his classes and done the work. He’s reined in his personal resentments. He’s followed all the rules this time. He’s not going to react like how he would have, blow up in a rage, spewing hurtful, barbed words. He has to think bigger now. “What’s it going to take to get Voltron back in the air as soon as possible?”

Shiro gives him a look that is assessing, then approving, like he can see a past version of Keith going through those old predictable motions and this new, grown up one is a welcome change. “Prove it to the Assembly that you’re ready. Show them what Voltron is capable of. Show them you’ve taken your lessons to heart.” After a pause, Shiro then adds, “And refrain from being a smart ass about it.”

He opens his mouth with a rejoinder, only to swallow it back down at Shiro’s pointed look, almost gagging on the prickle of fishbones still lodged in his throat that definitely weren’t worth it, in hindsight. “Fine. Just know that Voltron’s going to be there on launch day and we’ll be ready.”

Shiro sits back. He studies the determination written clear across Keith’s face for several moments, and whatever he finds seems to be satisfactory. “I don’t doubt that you will.”

 

_____

 

It’s hot under the midday sun, and the immense heat is shimmers in waves on the flat, sand-dusted tarmac. Even though the Lions are climate controlled, Keith can practically taste broiling air and briefly worries if the exterior paint will melt off. 

“....soooo,” Lance says over the comms. “Is this some new training method? Mindfulness? Were we supposed to be meditating on our Lions in the last half hour we’ve been out here?”

As if Lance could shut up for that long. Keith tries to keep the frustration out of his voice. “Hunk, can you try Pidge again?”

“Uh, sure, but, FYI, I did just that about thirty seconds ago, when you also asked, and I’m not sure we’re going to break pattern this time,” Hunk says in his gently disapproving way.

“We can give it five more dobashes,” Allura suggests. There’s a note of hesitation in her tone, her own optimism is waning.

Keith huffs. “Fine.”

The thing this, they’re supposed to start team training today. They booked the training grounds and airspace and all. Once he’d properly woken up, Keith actually found himself looking forward to it. Their previous team trainings as they made their long, tedious journey back to Earth had been haphazard and more trial-by-fire than the low-stakes, camaraderie-filled training they used to engage in with Shiro back in the Castle. Keith wants to return to that.

Except Green, along with her Paladin, are nowhere to be seen.

He tries not to let his mounting frustration show, but the rest of the team can probably sense it anyway in the growing silence.

After another ten minutes pass, Keith’s about to call it all off when Green comes bounding up to join the line.

“Well look who decided to show up,” Lance says.

“Sorry, guys,” Pidge says breathlessly as if she’d been the one running and not her Lion. “Got stuck on a project and I really couldn’t leave until it was done.”

“Is this the hush hush robeast vivisection that no one’s supposed to know about but that we all know about?” asks Lance.

“Classified,” Pidge says without missing a beat. “I’m really sorry, Keith.”

She really does sound contrite. Keith swallows back his initial harsh reprimand, Commander Holt’s words still ringing in his head. “It’s okay, Pidge. There’s still some time left to get in a good exercise run. Just...next time, try harder? It’s difficult enough booking the space here.” To say the least. Between a hundred or so MFEs and other aerial ships all jockeying for time in the air, trying to block off enough airspace for Voltron to train is a scheduling nightmare. Shiro and the Federation may want this, but they sure haven’t made it easy to accomplish.

“I will,” Pidge promises.

“Well now that the band’s back together again, let’s say we get this party started,” Hunk urges.

“Actually, I have just the thing,” Pidge says. “Shiro gave me this simulation exercise for Voltron to run today.” And it smarts just a little that Shiro hadn’t given it directly to _him_ , but Keith just presses his lips together and keeps silent. “He said it was what the Federation was expecting Voltron to succeed in before they’d consider, uh, permitting us to operate again.”

There’s something deeply frustrating, not to mention annoying, about not even being able to direct his own team’s training sessions, that somehow his own standards are no longer good enough for the Federation, despite Voltron having saved or liberated a good number of its members. There’s a part of Keith that wants to throw a finger in the face of this whole ridiculous charade, tell everyone, _fine_ , if they don’t want Voltron, let’s see how well they’ll do without it.

But the newer, more mature parts of himself knows he can’t abandon his responsibilities. They would just have to overcome this obstacle like they have everything else thrown in their path.

Prove themselves. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Run it,” Keith orders, flexing his hands over Black’s controls.

“Uploading now.”

The view before him transforms from a hazy desert landscape to the vast glittering array of space, so realistic that Keith has to blink away his disorientation and get his bearings.

There are two heavily populated systems within sight and the stats that crowd his screen inform him the twin systems are home to billions in heavily populated cities scattered across their surfaces. Their primary source of energy comes from a nearby small star that they both revolve around. They share a basic defense system capable of shielding from the power of a Ziforge cannon for up to thirty minutes, but after that, the destruction would be massive.

A countdown appears in the center of his screen, ticking down to the start of the simulation….

Keith sucks in a sharp breath as the robeasts appear, similar in look and shape to the previous deadly and sleek Altean-powered creatures they’ve fought. But this time, there are three of them, a number they’ve yet to encounter in one battle when they’ve only ever barely managed to defeat one.

“Is anyone else’s eyesight going wonky? Because I’m seeing in triplicate here,” Hunk says.

“As am I,” Allura says.

“Yep,” Pidge adds.

“Aw, crap,” Lance succinctly remarks.

Keith tries to push back the sinking feeling in his gut by sheer force of will. The creatures are already in action, moving towards their targets with swift and lethal intent. “Alright time, we know what these things are capable of, so we need to be careful,” he says in what he hopes is his most inspiring, commanding tone. “First, we need to spread out and pull their attention away from the planets first while we try to look for a weakness.”

They break formation and fan out, Yellow and Blue placing themselves between the robeasts and their targets while Black, Green, and Red fly in circular formation between the creatures themselves in an attempt to divide and conquer.

The creatures, of course, aren’t particularly happy to have their missions thwarted, and the exchange of laser fire begins.

“Lance, bank right now!”

“One’s on me, can you…?”

“I’ll cover you, Allura!”

“Geez, these things are crazy fast! Like way faster than normal. Do they seem faster than usual to you?”

“They do seem a great deal more challenging,” Allura grunts while Blue pivots just in time to avoid a barrage of energy blasts. 

Lance is right. These robeasts are far deadlier than anything they’ve faced before. They move faster, their attacks are far more lethal, and Keith doesn’t even want to think about what would happen if they managed to use their energy absorption capabilities. “Pidge, where are we on those scans? We have to find some way to stop them.”

“Almost finished,” Pidge says as Green avoids a narrow scrape of an energy-stealing scythe thanks to Hunk battering the creature from behind and just managing to escape being attacked himself.

The scans flare up on Keith’s screen, outline the shape of the creature, its major sources of power, even the heat image of the Altean sitting within its core. What he doesn’t see, however, are any discernible vulnerabilities like other robeasts had, even as they became more sophisticated. “Anyone find anything?” he asks, trying not to sound desperate.

“I mean, from an engineering standpoint, they’re really impressive?” Hunk offers.

“Well, all I know is that we don’t stand a chance against these things on our own,” Lance says.

“Our Lions can’t take a direct hit at full power from even one of those things,” Pidge adds.

“Then we have to form Voltron, and fast,” Keith says. “We’ve faced down these guys before. We can do this. Let’s show them what we’re made of.”

“Yeah!” comes the chorus of replies across the comms, filling Keith with a sharp and fierce warmth. Whatever happens, whatever it takes, he knows his team is with him to the end.

They fall into formation as easily as breathing. It’s second nature: Black with Red and Green flanking her, Blue and Yellow riding alongside them. Black edges ahead, just a little faster. Red and Green pull just a little further apart. Blue and Yellow fall back to the rear, ready to form Voltron’s foundation. Keith closes his eyes. He can feel almost feel the whisper of the other Paladins’ minds at the edges of his, waiting to come together and connect until they are all one. He used to be terrified of this, then just intensely uncomfortable, but now, he throws himself into it, eager for that intimate mental communion.

A scream tears through his mind, as agognizing as a knife slicing through his flesh. Keith’s eyes fly open only to realize the noise had come from him. It’s echoed by the pained cries of the others in his ears as a robeast tears right through their Lions before their connection can solidify, sending them scattering across the sky like stardust.

Everything goes bright, blinding white, and then dark—

—Keith’s senses come back online, disoriented.

There are flashing warning signs all over his screen. Allura is yelling into the comms, asking if anyone’s conscious, that the robeasts have commenced their assault, and before him, the view is illuminated purple as the robeasts siphon off another system’s quintessence.

The entire scene suddenly freezes and fades to black, leaving behind the stark red words: MISSION FAILURE.

“Somehow that was actually worse than that unwinnable simulation Krolia tried,” Hunk says in the stunned silence that ensues.

“How do I hurt from a _simulation_?” Lance asks.

“Mental connections to the Lions,” Pidge blearily answers despite the question being rhetorical. “Simulation or no, it feels real. Too real.”

“We’ll work harder next time,” Allura says. “We can train for this. We’ll do better.”

Those were supposed to be Keith’s words of encouragement to his team, but he can’t find the wherewithal to chime in with his support. His throat feels closed up tight, almost choking him. Keith’s hands drop from Black’s controls and fall into his lap.

His viewscreen clears to reveal the serene starry night sky over Earth. He stares at it for so long, all its familiar constellations and patterns, until his eyes begin to water. Still, he doesn’t look away. It’s going to be a long time before he can return to them.

 

_____

 

“What’s wrong?” are the first words out of Krolia’s mouth as soon as her face appears on his screen. There’s an ubiquitous metal background behind her that only lets Keith know she’s on a ship somewhere out in the universe, or perhaps some secret base. As always, she seems ageless. No white hair or new lines on her face. Only her eyes give away the wariness of a long life filled with its own sorrows and sacrifices. Now, though, her brows are pinched, the corners of her mouth tightened, entire countenance drawn tight in concern.

Keith’s expression breaks into a frown to cover the split second of panic. He shouldn’t be using this secure channel for anything but an emergency. She must be so busy now, trying to piece back together the shattered remnants of a nearly extinct organization. He shouldn’t be that easy to read. He isn’t. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

This time, Krolia’s eyes narrow. “You should stop doing that right now. It’s not going to work.” Flatly spoken, like a fact. Krolia doesn’t even need to warn or threaten. As happy as Keith is to have found his mother again, sometimes, more specifically times like this, it is mildly annoying to be read so immediately and easily.

For a few heartbeats, he considers keeping up the ruse anyway because he doesn’t want to lay this burden down at her feet as well. But, he called to see her face and to hear her voice—he misses her, truly—needing, for some reason he can’t put words to or look at too closely, to speak to someone whose expectations he doesn’t have to live up to.

Just for a little while. He just needs a moment to breathe. He can let go.

So he tells her the whole shameful story, from fucking it all up again at Vesna to the Federation’s decision to failing their simulation. Once he starts, he can’t stop, words unspooling at a rapid pace. To her credit, Krolia listens attentively and only interrupts to ask a clarifying question. 

“I think the worst thing isn’t even being grounded,” Keith says when he’s exhausted himself of his pent up frustrations and shame. “It’s that we no longer have anyone’s trust. What do they think we’ve been doing all these years? How many times are we going to have to prove ourselves?” _Will he ever be good enough?_

“The horrors of this war will fade with time in people’s memories. It’s a blessing, mostly, but it’s also easy to forget how much that peace cost.”

 _It’s a shame others’ memories are so short lived_ , Allura had said. “So I guess it’s back to square one?” Keith’s shoulders slump. He grimaces, suddenly exhausted. It all feels so endless. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be more than that sullen little creature who snuck in through the window and only got to stay because someone took pity on me.” Not that he cares what most people think. Just the people who matter.

There’s a remorseful look in Krolia’s eyes that makes Keith wince and want to apologize. This isn’t her fault, he wants to tell her. It’s his own surly disposition and having some of the shittiest luck in the universe, maybe, but not hers. “I’m not wholly unfamiliar with the trials you face, Keith. Being a Blade within the Galra Empire has meant being seen as the enemy by both my own people and those I swore to protect. It’s not an easy life. Neither, I imagine, is being a Paladin of Voltron. Somehow, you decided to be both,” Krolia tells him with a faint smile that Keith can’t help but ruefully mirror. He remembers well the scorn and contempt on people’s faces when they regarded the masked Blade members who helped liberate them. It contrasted sharply with the way they would gaze upon the Paladins with fawning worship and so much expectation.

The whole dire situation makes him laugh a little. “I don’t really make good life choices, if history hasn’t made that clear yet.”

But that only seems to drain the mirth from Krolia’s expression. “You don’t give yourself enough credit,” she says, resting her chin in one hand as she leans closer into the screen. It’s a disarmingly casual, _human_ pose that makes him ache to think she’d learned from his father. “Do you know what I am most proud of? Your strength and determination and focus. There hasn’t been a challenge you haven’t overcome or a stubborn opinion you haven’t eventually managed to prove wrong.”

That’s not how opinions work, Keith wants to tell her, but he’s warmed nonetheless by her unwavering support. “Maybe this is weird to say, but it seemed easier when the consequences of failure meant death.”

“The consequences don’t seem so immediate, but are they not the same? Without Voltron, more people will die.”

“I don’t know anymore,” he admits, finally giving voice to doubts that had been brewing within him lately. “Shiro seems to have it pretty well covered now between Earth’s expanding fleet and weapons. And he’s military trained...something that’s abundantly apparent where I’m lacking. If anything, Voltron was just too small for him.”

“Stop putting yourself down just to lift him up,” Krolia says firmly. “There is no military in this known universe that will ever compare with Voltron, or else Zarkon, with all the power and quintessence he’d accumulated over ten thousand years, would never have wanted it so badly. You lead that weapon, Keith. Not Shiro. Not anyone else. I know it’s difficult right now, but this is the time to remember your worth and remind them of who you are.”

Embarrassingly, Keith finds himself tearing up a little. He takes a sharp, shuddery breath and wills the moisture back with as much determination as he has in piloting Black. “Thanks,” he says pathetically, speech half muffled by the hand that covers them, but by the way her eyes soften, Keith knows she understands.

After that, it’s a lighter, easier conversation. Krolia updates him with her progress without ever being too specific and Keith knows just enough to fill in the blanks. He knows that four years of being MIA and a now fragmented Galra Empire to contend with has made things difficult, not just in finding anyone who would listen, but even in convincing them that there were still battles to fight. It’s thankless work, but as Keith listens, he can’t help but be a little nostalgic for his time with the Blades. Though they have strict rules to obey and goals to obtain, a Blade is still very much a free agent in the way they could achieve them. It had been liberating, only having to be responsible to the mission and himself. 

Even better, Krolia tells him, is that Kolivan is finally fully recovered from his ordeal with the Druid. And yes, he’s as curmudgeonly as ever, but softer now. Quieter, too. There are things he didn’t think he’d ever get to see in his lifetime now come to pass. Maybe it feels a little bit like hope. Keith thinks he understands.

 

_____

 

There’s a moment where Keith vaguely wonders if he’s somehow gotten himself trapped in a time loop. Allura once described her experience of being caught up in one when all the Lions had been scattered across the universe after their first real encounter with Zarkon. Every time she passed through that black nothingness and returned to the consciousness of her present, it had been as if waking from a dream, only to realize that, no, the dream she was living was terrifying real. Nothing had changed except Coran’s alarmingly diminishing age. The urgency of fixing it was the only thing, Allura said, that kept her from feeling like she was going mad.

The desert, and its heat, don’t ever really change, not for as long as Keith has known it. Its horizon is unobscured and infinite, its colors are parched and sun-bleached. It is cruel and unforgiving, but it was strangely comforting to a young boy whose family-less life often felt as empty and bleak as the scorched red rocks and the striving, desperate desert shrubs that clawed out an existence from their cracks.

This time when he gazes out at the arid landscape, he just feels irritation, because here they are about to start a second round of training—a whole five days after their last disastrous run because Keith couldn’t find an earlier window to claim, and no, he didn’t get special treatment as the leader of Voltron, he had smugly been informed, and was subject to the same first come, first serve rules as everyone else—and yet Pidge is nowhere to be found. Again.

“You know how Pidge gets,” Hunk tries, but there’s a thread of sheepishness coloring his tone. Even Yellow flicks her tail in consternation. “She probably lost track of time again. I can go get her?”

“Or you could buy her a watch,” Lance says, already bored. He’s planted his head in one hand, his fingers tapping out a rhythm against his helmet.

“Keith…” Allura begins, but is sharply cut off by the frustrated near growl that rises from his throat, unbidden.

“I’ll get her,” Keith grits out, pulling Black from the lineup to lope back to the hangars in an agitated gait.

Large and fast as she is, Black eats up the distance in seconds. The Lions were afforded each their own bay in the Garrison hangars when reconstruction had begun in earnest. It was a nice gesture, even if they hardly had time in the past few months to even make use of them.

Keith bypasses Black’s bay and heads towards Green’s, slightly disconcerted to find it empty. He tries Pidge’s communicator, only to have it cycle through a seemingly endless series of beeps until her chirpy voicemail greeting pops up.

“Seriously, Pidge?” he records before ending the call.

He stares at the vacant spot where Green should be. He doesn’t know why it bothers him so much. There are still piles of sand on the ground from where Green had tracked them in earlier. 

With another frustrated noise hissed between his clenched teeth, he turns back on the comms. “That’s it for today.”

“Wait, what? Where’s Pidge?”

“Really?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m canceling training,” Keith says. “Pidge is MIA. I can’t find Green either.”

“Ummmm,” Hunk says cagily, “Yeah, so that’s weird. She was in her lab the last time I saw her.” 

“Maybe she took Green out for a joy ride?” Lance suggests, which makes Keith roll his eyes.

“Maybe we should try to go on without Green while we still have the time booked,” Allura says. “I know we won’t be able to form Voltron, but we can at least get more practice in with our own Lions.”

He doesn’t like it. Aside from the impossibility of forming Voltron, they’re a team and they should all be practicing as one. Together. “We’ll fail the simulation.”

“Then let’s not worry about the simulation right now,” Allura says. “Remember when this used to be fun?”

He isn’t sure what Allura remembers as being so fun about previous team trainings—the time they were stranded in the vastness space without their Lions? When she was shooting energy beams at all of them to try to get them all to form Voltron after that first desperate, harried time on Arus?

But then it reluctantly comes back: the joy when it all finally _clicked_ and they knew each other so well they didn’t even have to speak out loud anymore. How one Lion could cover another with its own unique weapons and skills. How they moved in perfect tandem to decimate entire battle cruisers. “Okay,” he relents, “We go without Pidge for today. Team drills only.”

Lance cheers. “Pidge Schmidge. Who needs her anyway, am I right?”

“Voltron does?” Allura says, confused.

“That was a...you know what, never mind.”

“Just shut up and concentrate on your turns, Lance,” Keith says, but he finds himself smiling for the first time that day.

“Excuse you, my turns are sharper than the Blade of Marmora.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

Even if they continue to bicker good naturedly throughout the rest of the afternoon, Allura was right: it’s still time well spent. Simply being able to pilot Black again without the immediate burden of lives on the line feels almost luxuriously joyful. He’s almost forgotten what it’s like to fly for the thrill of it. Even if Black isn’t as fast as Red, she’s still a blazing streak in the air when Keith spurs her on, only pulling back to make sure he doesn’t accidentally end up on the other side of the Galaxy.

His good mood lasts through his shower and change of clothes afterwards, but as he nears Pidge’s lab, it all slowly comes back again: his frustration and anger. Even a sense of hurt. Pidge knew how important this was to him, and yet she wasn’t there.

He should have guessed by the total silence heralding his approach to the lab that he’d find it completely empty, but he only feels a deepening sense of dread. It’s not even that Pidge isn’t here, it’s that she hasn’t been here in _days_. No mountain of crushed soda cans or crumpled bags of junk food littered over the tables. No half-finished projects absentmindedly scattered around the room. Everything is clean and put away, like their owner knew she wouldn’t be returning for a long, long time.

Finally, he breaks down and contacts Hunk, not even bothering with a greeting. “Where is that robeast being held?”


	6. Chapter 6

The lab is apparently so classified that guards aren’t even posted outside. It’s just an obscure, unmarked door that could have been mistaken for a supply closet if not for the keypad. Keith uses Pidge’s code, which had been coerced and then threatened and then pleaded out of Hunk, who, Keith had pointed out, shouldn’t have had it in the first place either.

Still, he braces himself for klaxons to sound and Garrison soldiers to come flooding in as soon as the indicator light turns green and the door opens with a hiss, but his rare bout of luck continues to hold and nothing goes amiss. After releasing a short breath of relief, Keith steps into the room.

The dark, narrow passageway opens up into a large cavernous space at least three stories tall with mounted screens and projections of the kinds of complex data Keith can’t possibly hope to understand at a glance. At the center of the room is the slender, lengthy robeast, strung up by thick chains and splayed out like some Frankensteinian creature. Its torso is a gutted autopsy of wires and faint smatterings of mysteriously purple fluid. The unfortunate Altean that had powered it was now likely stored in a morgue elsewhere.

“Well this is nightmarish,” Keith remarks.

Pidge startles from her hunched over position at a nearby monitor. “Keith! What are you doing here? How did you even get in?”

“Hunk,” Keith answers. “Shouldn’t I be asking you the same thing? You missed training.”

“I…” Pidge falters, glancing back at the time to confirm that, yes, she well and truly messed up. Her shoulders sink in defeat. “I’m so sorry, Keith. It’s just that I’m so busy. I must have lost track of time. I didn’t even realize what day it was.”

Upon closer glance, she looks as if she hasn’t actually slept in days either. The dark circles under her eyes are like smudges on glass. Her hair is an unkempt halo of frustration, clothes loose and well worn, enough for him to suspect she hasn’t changed out of them for as many all-nighters as she’s pulled.

He was prepared to baste in his righteous anger, but a cold thread of concern winds through him instead. “Pidge, what’s going on?”

“Just…” Pidge waves a grease-smeared hand at the robeast and then at the computer station she’s situated behind. “Everything. Thoroughly analyzing the robeast was my first priority so we could trace that energy signature to its origin. It’s _there_. I know it is...but none of my tools or any programs I build can figure it out! It’s so frustrating, and everyday I just get more and more questions about it. There’s so much riding on this Keith. The Garrison is counting on me.”

Her glasses, too large for her face and unnecessary besides, make her eyes seem even larger, her entire face even younger. Too young, Keith thinks. She’s barely now the age when they all began this crazy ordeal, too young for the fate of the universe to rest solely on her shoulders. 

Behind the usual expressed frustration when technology has failed her, there’s something desperate in her expression. Whether it’s a plea for understanding or help, Keith doesn’t know.

“Shiro ordered you to do this?”

Pidge blinks at him. Her eyes widen at whatever she sees in his face. “I wanted to help. I’m one of the few people here who _can_.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“He’s our leader, Keith,” she says simply, hands twitching helplessly at her sides.

He opens his mouth to—what? Dispute it? No. His lips press firmly together, bloodless. “I’ll talk to him.”

“And say what? That locating Haggar isn’t important? Because it is. You know that. In fact….”

Pidge stops herself, but Keith presses. “What? Spit it out, Pidge.”

“Shiro thinks Allura and Hunk can help out with this too. But only if I need it. And I do need it, Keith. I know training is important, but...I don’t think I can crack this alone.”

Which would mean taking them out of training too until Haggar’s location was found, rendering any attempts at training pointless. He clenches his hands into fists. The return of his frustration feels more like a bright blaze of all-consuming heat.

No, not frustration. Anger. Fury. But he can’t—he doesn’t know where it should go or what to do with it. It’s a wild, untamable animal in his chest, pounding in his head and burning through his veins.

“Do what you gotta do,” he manages to say, squeezed from the crushing vice that the invisible angry creature has around his throat.

He turns and leaves. Pidge calls out to him, but he doesn’t stop. He can’t stand to be there for a second longer.

Somehow, he ends up back in Shiro’s quarters, but doesn’t remember making the conscious decision to go there or much of the journey. Objects skitter in and out of focus like a wildly swinging spot light. The model rocketship. Shiro’s belated medals of honor that he used to laugh and point at while explaining how some of them could only be awarded posthumously, for which he apparently still qualified. A worn and well-read paperback sci-fi book series with cracked spines. Keith’s heart is beating so hard that it makes his chest ache, each thud bashing against bone.

He takes a deep breath, holds it in his lungs until they feel like they’re going to burst, and then slowly releases the air through his lips. Again and again and again, until the oxygen cools the painful burning and the pressure in his skull begins to recede.

Calmer now, he can think more rationally. There’s no reason to get so worked up without knowing all the facts, he reminds himself. So he calls Shiro.

Who he gets, though, is Veronica. “How can I help you, Mr Kogane?” she asks with a politely attentive expression on her face.

It throw him off, the words drying up in his throat, leaving him gaping stupidly at her through his tablet. He blinks and clears his throat. “Where’s Shiro?”

“He’s currently engaged in pre-flight checks for the next half hour.”

“He didn’t see he was going somewhere.”

“It was last minute,” Veronica says, pushing her glasses up. “We didn’t know ourselves until an hour ago. Ambassador Stein was originally scheduled to go, but she had a medical emergency. The Admiral volunteered to fill in. We leave tonight. I was just about to send you a notice, actually.”

Right on cue, his tablet dings and a new message notification slides across the top of his screen from Veronica. Ignoring the woman in question smiling in satisfaction, Keith opens the alert. It looks to have been personally written from Shiro, candidly apologetic and sincere. He’s just too busy. It was completely unexpected, but crucial: a diplomatic tour of four planets newly admitted into the Federation for good will making and alliance building. He should only be gone for two weeks. Shiro the hero, who now leaves personal correspondence with the people he’s fucking to his administrative assistants.

“Look,” Keith says, “is there any way I can speak with him before you leave? It’s kinda important.”

Veronica’s politely attentive expression slides into politely apologetic with the well practiced ease of an experienced gatekeeper. “I’m sorry, Mr Kogane, but that won’t be possible. The Admiral’s schedule is booked for the next two days with preparations. But I can schedule some time for a call later in the week?”

“You know what? Don’t bother. Thanks.” A less than gracious response, but it’s all he can manage, grimacing before ending the call all together.

He flops down onto the lumpy couch and leans back until he’s staring at the fine hairline cracks and water stains in the ceiling. Exhaustion and soreness creep up into his limbs from muscles that haven’t piloted a Lion in far too long.

It didn’t used to be like this, he thinks. But he doesn’t know what this is. The expanding, complicated universe. Their new roles in this new world order. Haggar’s looming menace. This untouchable distance with Shiro whose origins Keith can’t quite pinpoint. It’s murky and slippery and unsettling, and he’s surrounded by it. He can’t tell if the temperature’s rising. 

 

_____

 

“Yield! Okay, I yield!” Lance chokes out, palm frantically slapping across the mats like an overexcited dog’s tail.

Keith immediately releases Lance from the hold he’d pinned him down with and rolls smoothly to his feet, restless, not even haven broken a sweat despite the good half hour they’ve been at it. Lance may be able to outshoot Keith, but his hand-to-hand skills are still lacking and it shows. It’s something Keith is fully intent on rectifying now that they’re the only functional members of Voltron left.

Still splayed out on the floor, Lance groans pitifully.

“You need to do more strength training,” Keith says. “You’re weak as a kitten.”

“Hey, I'm strong! Not all of us have your freaky Galra strength,” Lance says, flopping onto his back and pushing his drenched hair off his forehead.

“Even Pidge can flip you, man.”

Lance’s flush from his prior exertions deepens, but he only shrugs his shoulders with the put upon air of a man who has to shoulder the world’s burdens. “What can I say? I’m a born lover, not a fighter.”

“I don’t think ‘loving someone to death’ is going to get you very far in battle,” Keith says, offering Lance his hand.

Lance eyes it before taking it up with an easy grin. “Tell that to all my past conquests—oof!” His eyes widen as he’s single handedly lifted to his feet so quickly that he stumbles before regaining his footing. 

Keith can’t help his snort. “What conquests? You’ve been in space for years. The last person who showed an interest in you tied you to a tree and stole the Blue Lion.”

“There was a hot mermaid too! Though, she did only lure me in to get absorbed by the mermaid Borg and was eventually fed to an an evil sea monster.” Lance shakes out his arm and massages it gingerly. “Be gentle with me, I bruise easily.”

Keith just shakes his head before moving into ready stance and giving Lance an expectant look until Lance sighs and reluctantly mirrors him, albeit much more sloppily. “Speaking of winning streaks, how’s it going with Allura?”

Lance scowls and drops his hands. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“You? Not wanting to talk? There’s a first time for everything.” Keith starts forward, only to pause when Lance skitters back. “What’s wrong? Put your guard back up.”

“Keith, my man. You know you’re just going to kick my ass inside of twenty seconds. What’s the point anymore?”

“That’s better than the five seconds when we first started,” Keith says, trying to be encouraging. Lance just gives him a flat look that says he’s unequivocally failed. “You’re not going to get better if you don’t practice.”

“I’m perfectly at peace with my shortcomings in this situation,” Lance says, flopping back down onto the mat like a stubborn toddler refusing to be moved, making it perfectly clear they’re done for the day. Grunting, Keith drops down next to him. Lance side eyes his fidgeting as he grabs his water. “You can keep going if you want. Don’t let me get in the way of your urge to punch and stab things.”

For a second, he’s tempted to do just that. Find a punching bag to destroy just to exhaust himself so he can ignore the bed sheets that smell like Shiro and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. But Lance just looks at him while gulping down half his bottle with raised brows. Right. “Am I overreacting?”

“No one said that,” Lance denies. “You’re just really bad at taking criticism.” At Keith’s outraged glare, he laughs nervously, “Joking!” Keith thinks he hears a muttered, _Sorta_ , before Lance quickly adds, “But, I get it. Look, we’ve been on the front lines since this whole thing started. We led the charge to bring down the Galra empire and free Earth. It sucks that people late to the game think they can take all that away from us now.”

“Then why am I the only one acting like it’s not okay?”

“Weeeeeell...Hunk and Pidge get to go to their weird Science happy place trying to solve the robeast issue. Allura’s been preoccupied with the Alteans.” Lance grimaces. There’s more to the story there, clearly, but Keith won’t press. “Just because we’re not piloting Voltron doesn’t mean we still aren’t helping.”

“But you’re not doing anything and I don’t see you complaining.” Keith winces, because _wow_ , sometimes he’s really terrible at using his words. “...I didn’t mean it like that.”

It’s a mark of how much Lance has grown that he doesn’t start tearing into Keith then and there. Instead, he just tips his head in easy acknowledgement. No offense taken. “Things look pretty crappy right now, but we’ve been through a lot worse. I trust Shiro. He’s not going to sideline us Keith. We just gotta wait and...let him do his bureaucrat whisperer thing. He’s on our side, when’s he’s, you know, not an evil sleeper agent clone.”

It’s such simple, pure faith. It makes Keith feel guilty just by hearing it. He was once like Lance, wasn’t he? He didn’t question. He trusted Shiro without a shred of doubt, even when the others _didn't_. When did their roles get reversed? What’s wrong with him that he’s not like that anymore?

Does he really think he knows better now? Him, who got them all into this mess in the first place with his bad calls and short sightedness?

“Maybe you’re right,” he says quietly. “Maybe I just need to be more patient. Again.”

“I always am, buddy,” Lance says sagely, giving Keith a playful clap on the shoulder. “I always am.”

Keith shrugs it off and glares at him, but only because it’s what Lance expects. “There’s this saying about broken clocks....”

“Shut it, Mullet.”

After a shower and taking a scant fifteen minutes to shovel as much food into his mouth as possible in the mess hall, Keith finds himself with little else on his agenda for the day. He doesn’t have any side projects to tinker with. He’s done with his course work, two weeks ahead of schedule, in fact. His team, his wolf, his enemies, and his...whatever Shiro is to him...are MIA with their freedom to do exactly what they want at any given time. If this is a taste of what life is going to be like after the war is over, when everyone else has moved on with their lives except him, then he’s not sure it’s something to look forward to.

Without fully realizing where his feet take him, he finds himself wandering into Black’s hanger, gazing up at her Sphinxlike stillness. Worst of all, of course, is that he can’t fly. He isn’t even cleared to fuck around in the Garrison’s flight simulator, not actually being a cadet anymore. As he comes closer, Black’s eyes light up and she turns her head to regard him.

“Hey girl,” he greets, feeling the stir of her presence in the back of his mind like an affectionate cat rubbing up against his legs. At least he still has this. “Yeah, I know. I miss you too.”

She lowers her head and opens her mouth for him, drawing him into the cockpit where he curls up in the pilot’s chair and stares out at the inside of the dim hangar. Black is a steady thrumming in his veins, as comforting as a feline’s purr, patiently waiting to carry out his command, but he has no voice to give her direction this time.

“Sorry,” he says, stroking the hand rest of his chair. “I wish I could be the leader you deserve right now too.”

Despite the constant churning sensation in his veins, at some point he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he's aware of is stirring slowly awake to find himself still curled up in Black’s pilot chair, shivering in the cold, silent air and starving on top of it all. It must be night, the desert’s oppressive daytime heat dropping into perilous chill.

When he leaves Black’s bay, he can’t help walking past Green’s once more. It’s as dark and empty as it was the last time Keith had seen it, and the sight still fills him with some unnameable sense of unease.

The first thing he does when he reaches Shiro’s quarters is mindlessly pillage the refrigerator of all its leftovers, heating up what absolutely cannot be eaten cold, and waiting for it by cleaning out the containers of what can. When the microwave beeps, he sweeps the burning hot containers into his arms like they’re precious children, plants himself on the couch, and turns on the TV, because he’s thoroughly fucked his sleep schedule and there’s no going back now.

There’s a hell of a lot more channels to choose from nowadays, a whole universe’s worth of media to now enjoy. Granted, many of them are in languages he can’t understand—Earth’s closed captioning has yet to get around to adopting universal translator technology yet—but he immediately recognizes a rebroadcast of _The Voltron Show!_ with Bih-Boh commentary, and it’s stupidly amusing enough to kill another hour of another long night. There are many regrets and guilty feelings Keith carries about leaving the team for the Blades during that time, but not getting to make stupid poses while spewing ridiculous lines is definitely not one of them.

After another round of rapidfire channel surfing, it’s Shiro’s image that causes him to pause on a news broadcast.

Shiro in dress uniform shaking hands with several bear-like aliens. Smiling and posing for a lightning storm of photos. Looking fascinated by whatever one of the aliens is saying before breaking into a delighted chuckle.

“... _Admiral Shirogane met with Tuvron’s leaders earlier today, Earth time, to discuss their future role in the Voltron Federation. Sources also report that the meeting concluded with successful negotiations on the three point seven billion dollar sale of Earth’s latest military weapons and technology, including at least fifteen battle class cruisers…._ ”

He cuts a handsome figure, Keith can’t help but think, heart racing just at the sight of Shiro. He’s caressed that sharp jaw and had those gray eyes hold his at the exact moment he made Shiro come undone.

The Tuvrons tower over Shiro in both height and breadth, but he doesn’t look out of place or any less confident beside them. _The Face of the Voltron Federation_ , he once heard some pundit remark. It’s an apt description. Even today, people across the universe think Shiro is still Voltron’s Black Paladin, partly because of those stupid rebroadcasts but also because there was an inherent quality about Shiro himself that made people want to follow him. Believe in him. Trust him.

It had never been that way for Keith.

 _Stop putting yourself down just to lift him up_. But sometimes, he couldn’t help the direct comparisons, especially when he finds himself coming up short every time. Because Shiro is just naturally _good_ at this. Being a leader. _The_ leader. The universe is a larger place. Voltron isn’t its only protector. Maybe not even its best one, not anymore. Who is Keith to say otherwise when the evidence speaks pretty clearly for itself?

His wallowing is abruptly interrupted by his wolf teleporting on the couch next to him, stinking of roadkill that’s been left out under the sun for too long. It’s strong enough to make his eyes water and roil his stomach. “Ah, nice to be remembered.”

He pushes away his food, which his wolf interprets as an offering for him to take over eating. There was a time when his wolf never left his side, ever, but Keith supposes that’s his fault too: he’s the one who had to leave his wolf behind first, and in his absence, the wolf became the independent, wild creature he was always meant to be.

Now the wolf gives no fucks as he pants happily at Keith, long pink tongue lolling out of his mouth, snout smeared with sauce, eyes half closed in contentment after a day of running (or teleporting) wild and free without a care in the universe. Despite the stench, Keith finds himself...jealous. Over a fucking wolf, of all people.

“Just for that,” Keith says to him, “You’re getting a bath.”

 

_____

 

“Hey Kogane.”

He’s on his regularly scheduled cleaning shift (sand really did get into the most bewildering places, a fact he’d forgotten in all his time out in the vacuum of space), when Rizavi saddles up to him like they're co-conspirators. He pauses, broom in hand, and stares at her. “What?”

Rizavi grins like he’s just told her something hilarious. “Geez, I know cleaning duty sucks, but you really gotta lighten up. And I know just the ticket.”

Keith’s brow furrows. “What?” he repeats, only this time, it’s laced with helpless curiosity.

Knowing she’s got him, Rizavi’s smile turns coy as she wags a hand at him, _follow me_ , and turns on her heel. Wondering if he’s going to regret this, Keith drops his broom and does.

They don’t, in the end, walk very far. Just to the other end of the hangar, in fact, where a line of MFEs are parked. Keith remains unimpressed as he folds his arms across his chest. “I know what your jets look like, Rizavi.”

“Yeah, but have you ever flown one?”

“Obviously not.”

“Then let’s change that.”

Suspecting he’s about to walk into a trap, Keith frowns, looking at the seemingly innocuous MFE jet. “Is this some kind of joke?”

She rolls her eyes. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re super paranoid? No, it’s not a joke. I think you should fly with us today.”

“I’m not allowed to,” he says slowly, like she’s not a very bright child. “I’m not a part of the Garrison.”

RIzavi snorts. “Like that’s ever stopped you before.”

“Then why?” Keith asks, utterly confused now. “Why would you let me?”

“Because you were the best pilot in our class,” comes a new voice that makes Keith instinctually scowl before actually hearing the content of his words. Griffin.

Keith turns around in time to catch the flight helmet Griffin tosses at him, but it’s all he has in him to do other than stare at the other man in stupefaction.

“And I know you’ve been itching to get off the ground since you got here,” Griffin continues, ignoring Keith’s gaping. “Besides, I always wanted to go head to head with you in the air. Why not now?”

“You want to fly. With me.”

Griffin nods. “Yeah. I want to see what you got.”

“What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch.” There are no tells in Griffin’s smile, no flatness in his eyes or tension at the corners, and it’s strange. Griffin’s never done that at Keith before. “In full disclosure, though, I will say part of me would like for you to appreciate how awesome our birds are. They may not be alien Lion ships, but they’re fast and handle like a dream. Plus, you get a full team of us to play with today.”

Keith’s gaze can’t help but be drawn back to the jets again. Keith feels like a starving man being shown to a feast. The lure of being able to fly again is tempting. Even getting the chance to fly an MFE jet would be amazing with all its sleek white lines and intuitive technology (or so he’d obsessively read). There wouldn’t be a sentient being doing most of the work, it’d all be him. And as much as he loved piloting Black, there’s something to be said for being in total control of an aircraft, knowing that his successes and failures hinged solely on him alone.

But, even now, he can’t silence the skeptical voice in the back of his mind. “But you hate me.”

“When we were younger? Yeah, pretty much,” Griffin freely admits. “You were weird and off putting and antisocial, and then the Garrison’s Living Legend favored you out of seemingly nowhere, but, insult to injury, it was for good reason because it turned out that you had all this incredible raw talent. I was jealous.” He shrugs, “I was also young, insecure, and stupid. I like to think I grew out of most of that. Mostly. I realize the last time we spoke wasn’t a very good showing.”

It’s...a lot. For a second, Keith panics at the way his limbs refuse to move and his face feels so hot, he wonders if he’s blushing. But then, gradually, sensation returns to his body and his muscles loosen, increment by increment. “Sorry,” he croaks when he can find his voice again. “For being a dick earlier. I was pissed off about a lot of things and I took them out on you.”

“Yeah, well. I was a dick to you a lot longer before that. I probably had it coming,” Griffin replies, rubbing his temple sheepishly before holding out this hand, fingers wide and as inviting as the twigs of an olive branch. “Be my wingman today?”

It takes another moment, but Keith reaches out and clasps it, warm and callused and firm, and only then just realizing how rarely he ever actually touches other people of his own volition outside of Shiro. “Yeah, alright.”

“D’awwww! Look at the bromance!” Right. He forgot about Rizavi. “Enemies to lovers, am I right?”

“A bromance is defined as a close but nonsexual relationship between two men.” And, apparently, Leifsdottir. “Additionally, I thought it was a widely acknowledged, if not officially confirmed, fact that Keith Kogane is involved in a romantic relationship with the Admiral.”

Griffin drops Keith’s hand to glare at his pilots. “Seriously, guys?” He pivots back to Keith with a familiar look of exaggerated exasperation. _Can you believe this is who I have to rely on to watch my back?_ Keith gets it. Maybe one day they could compare notes.

“So which one’s mine?” he asks, and Griffin gives him a grateful look.

“Lemme show you. Trust me, you’re gonna love it. You may never want to go back after being in one.”

“Uh huh.”

“You know what they say, flying a mecha-flex, better than—”

“That’s just embarrassing.”

In the end, Griffin is both right and wrong. Keith sits in the cockpit as the MFE comes alive around him, smooth and powerful as an ocean wave that he just has to glide upon, thinking about his next action more than actually having to shift the throttle, it’s so responsive. He barely has to engage the thrusters, there’s so much admirable efficiency in the design. It’s not a Lion, but once it’s in the air, it's almost difficult to keep it in the troposphere. The jet can practically fly itself with but the lightest of touches of correction by his own hand.

He tumbles through the air in controlled falls and barrels, makes sharp, stomach-churning turns and rolls with shocking ease. The blue sky and the orange earth tumble over each other in dizzying flashes outside his view screen until he doesn't always know if he’s soaring for the heavens or plummeting to earth. He can’t feel the wind on his face, but the G-forces pull at his skin, singing through him like an electric current, and he laughs and whoops, uninhibited.

“Looking good, Kogane.” In the jet flying beside him, Griffin gives him a thumbs up. “Have I changed your mind yet?”

“Depends,” Keith says, “Race through the canyons?”

“You’re on.”

“Loser buys the beer tonight!” Kinkade calls.

“Then I guess you can go for something classier than your piss water, cause Kogane’s buying!” Griffin says. "How much does being a Voltron Paladin pay these days?"

"Hate to disappoint, but it ain't much."

“If you guys crash, you better hope you don’t survive, cause Commander Holt’s gonna kill you,” Rizavi says.

“Eh, what Commander Holt doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Griffin wins by a hair, but probably only because, Griffin claims, he knows his bird better.

By the time they land, it’s been hours. Keith feels jittery when his feet touch the ground, for a moment he's uncertain he won’t just float right back up again, but he’s firmly grounded by Kinkade and Griffin slinging their arms over his shoulders in camaraderie. The blood’s still pumping in his ears so loudly that he can barely hear Rizavi saying something about hoping he’d consider joining them in battle if the Voltron thing doesn’t pan out.

Leifsdottir, who hates the taste of alcohol and assumes the role of DD by default, drives them out to the military-frequented bar that hovers between the base and the edges of Plaht City, and Keith honors his bet by buying the first round.

“Here’s to Kogane and being a very generous loser, despite it probably being a novel experience for him,” Griffin says, holding up his pint.

“And to Griffin, who’s maybe a little less insufferable these days,” Keith returns, smirking.

“You mean he used to be worse?” Rizavi asks, and almost spills her beer when Griffin jabs an elbow into her ribs.

He buys the second and third rounds too. Then the fourth. After that, things start to go fuzzy and he loses count.

“TV’s so weird now,” Griffin says as they all end up drunkenly entranced by some alien program on the screen that is some sort of soap opera, but there’s no discernible dialogue, just slick tentacles writhing around. Come to think of it, they may actually be watching alien porn.

“Life’s so weird now,” Keith corrects, and Griffin nods, like this is undisputed wisdom. “Why did you decide to apologize today of all days?”

Griffin blinks sluggishly at him. “To be honest...you looked pretty miserable lately. I know I said some shit, but...I didn’t like seeing it. Not on you, not on anyone.”

“It’s that simple?”

“It’s that simple,” Griffin says, too inebriated to be lying.

“Griffin’s like our Team Dad,” Rizavi adds, leaning her head on Griffin’s shoulder. “He takes care of us.”

Griffin’s smile goes too wide and transparently fond as only alcohol could allow. He pats Rizavi’s cheek and ends up tapping her nose instead. “Someone’s gotta keep you crazy kids in line.”

A stab of longing hits Keith so suddenly, his breath stutters, an actual ache in his chest that cracks and widens. He gulps down the rest of his beer to swallow down the painful lump in his throat. _Fuck_.

This should be his team. This should be him. This should be…

But if he wants this for his team, then it’s up to him to make it happen. He’s going to. He needs his team. No one is going to stop him, not the Garrison or the Federation. Not even Shiro.

 

_____

 

The IGF-Atlas makes landfall in the middle of the night to, despite the success of its most recent mission, little fanfare, slipping down to Earth like a furtive nocturnal animal. Even at minimum capacity, there’s a low but steady buzz of energy as a sizable ground crew dance around the ground in ordered, hivelike chaos. Keith remains still, a defiant rock around which the current swiftly flows, waiting.

The junior crew members are first wave off the ship, uniforms worn through their starch, bags and luggage slung over their shoulders, tired but satisfied expressions on their faces. Keith doesn’t know most of them and they only give him passing, curious looks before departing elsewhere, to their own beds, most likely.

But when no one else appears, Keith steels his shoulders and walks up the ramp into the ship itself. It’s odd to see the halls of the Atlas so empty, it feels less like walking through an active military warship than some solemn archaeological ruin, but it makes the somewhat lengthy trip to the bridge that much faster.

The senior officers are all, unsurprisingly, at their stations, running through their post-flight checks. Shiro stands at his command station, engaged in conversation with Veronica.

Keith doesn’t know whether to behave professionally or not, so he hovers somewhere in between, boldly walking onto the bridge and stopping with his hands folded behind his back. “Welcome home, Admiral.”

Shiro lifts his head and meets Keith’s eyes. He looks tired, but his eyes light up with a flatteringly bright spark, pinning him down with such intensity that it feels like the rest of the room has been dismissed. “Hello to you too.”

That look used to make him weak in the knees. It still does, a little, like the very essence of Shiro will always form the softest, weakest part of himself. “Do you have some time?”

“I need to go freshen up. Wanna walk and talk?” Shiro offers.

“You have fifteen minutes, sir,” Veronica says.

“Guess that’s the best I can get these days,” Keith says, and doesn’t even feel bad when Shiro frowns.

They walk off the bridge together, side by side. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Shiro’s occasional concerned glance.

The growing silence charges the air. When Keith’s hand accidentally against Shiro’s knuckles, he feels a tingle of electricity shoot up his nerves. He wants to, maybe, stop and slam Shiro against the wall, press one palm to Shiro’s throat, fist his hair and drag him down, taste him after so long, mark him so that he remembers what he chooses to leave.

He wants to shove Shiro back and then tear into him for everything that’s happened. He wants to know why.

“Fifteen minutes until what?” he finally asks.

It takes a moment for Shiro to work out what he means. “Oh. We have to head to Olkarion for a meeting with the Assembly. We just made a pit stop here for some crew changes, as well as to pick up Allura, Coran, and Romelle.”

“What? You’re leaving again?”

“Only for a few hours this time. Actually, I was hoping you’d be able to join us for this one.”

“Why?”

“It’ll be good to remind the Assembly of Voltron’s existence when and wherever possible,” Shiro says. “You’re important. You should be there.”

As soon as the door hisses closed, Shiro immediately tugs at the buttons of his uniform and peels the front panel back, losing the rigid posture of his spine. Everything about him softens into something more recognizable. It makes Keith feel like he’s walking on shaky ground.

“I’m surprised you even think about Voltron these days,” he starts, savoring the way Shiro’s hands still over the precise lines of his uniform.

Shiro turns to him and frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean you give me all these inspirational talks over breakfast and you hold my hand and then it’s only later I learn you’ve gone and pulled Pidge off the roster, or that you also plan on taking Hunk and Allura too, when you know it will cut into all the training the Assembly wants us to do.”

“That’s not what I was trying to do.”

“Then explain it to me,” Keith bites out through his gritted teeth, striving to keep his tone even. Controlled. They’re two rational adults here. He won’t be some hot headed child that just needs to be placated. “If Pidge isn’t piloting Green, then where is it?”

“The Green Lion is safe,” Shiro says, a hand held up, like he’s soothing a dumb, feral beast. “I just had it moved. Pidge knows. It’s fine.”

As if that’s enough anymore. As if that makes it all okay. “Why are you undercutting me like this? Do you even want Voltron to succeed here?”

“Of course I do!” Shiro says, heat beginning to seep into his words. He tugs off the rest of his uniform in sharp, rough movements, briefly struggling around the shoulder port, before letting the whole thing drop to the floor. The jagged white and pink scars on his skin peek out beneath the edges of his racerback, hardly dainty, but Keith knows how much worse remains hidden. “How could you even doubt that?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s because your actions aren’t matching up with what you’re saying!”

“Because what you want to do will only get the team and yourself killed!” Shiro tells him, words like a slap to the face. “Your plan to simply form Voltron and go after Haggar into unstable and unknown hostile territory? Knowing she has those monsters that almost defeated you? I can’t watch that happen again.”

The haunted look in Shiro’s eyes is familiar and unwelcome. Only instead of aiming it at nothingness within Black's dim hold, heedless to all of Keith’s attempts to get him to re-engage with the world again, or at the bland white walls of Keith's hospital room when he didn’t think Keith was paying attention, Shiro traps him in it and he feels like he’s on fire. His throat burns and scorches all his words until he can barely choke them out. “We’ve come a long way since then, Shiro.”

“And recent events have shown that you still have a long way to go.” Gone is the gentle, encouraging demeanor. Shiro’s eyes are gray and stony. Every syllable that falls from the hard line of his mouth is sharp and merciless.

But Keith had wanted to the truth. “That’s what you really think, isn’t it?”

For several heartbeats, Shiro holds his imploring gaze. Keith refuses to flinch or look away, even when each passing second makes him feel like he’s slowly and inevitably drowning.

But then Shiro starts, paling, blinking like he’s emerging from a trance. He rubs a shaking hand over the bridge of his nose, tracing its scar. “No. No, that’s not what I think. I…” His knees give out and he collapses onto the bed with less graces than he usually possesses. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that, Keith.”

Warily, Keith straightens from his defensive position against the door. “I just want to know why.”

“We’re barely keeping up with these attacks,” Shiro says, speaking more to the floor than at Keith. “Depending too much on the supposed infallibility of Voltron, or even Atlas, when we know that isn’t always true, is it?” He lifts his head, forcing Keith to acknowledge it too. Yes—yes things have been difficult. Exhausting. The margin of victory growing slimmer with every engagement….

“At the way things were going, there was bound to be a battle that we’d lose. We needed to do something different. The intel from the robeasts seemed to be the key, not only how they worked, but any evidence as to _where_. So I made an executive decision to make it our highest priority. I didn’t...I didn’t mean to...no, maybe on some level, yes, I knew it was going to interfere with training. It...was a tradeoff I was prepared to accept.”

“Without even talking to me about it? It’s _my_ team, Shiro. Not yours! Not anymore!”

Shiro stares at him. “Yes.” Then, a slow, tight smile edges up at the corner of his mouth. Gravely wounded, it dies long before it reaches his eyes. Shiro tries to hold it, that veneer, and when he can’t, he looks away, and Keith hates himself for putting it there, but he can’t take it back. Won't. “You’re right. I did overstep. I’m sorry.”

It’s hard to hold onto his anger after that. As if he’s weighed down by the reality of their situation, Shiro is hunched over himself, forearms, flesh and prosthetic, draped over his thighs. The shadows on his face paint a dire need for several nights’ worth of good rest.

And it’s not that what Shiro says isn’t unreasonable either—there’s still a war out there, they have to make sacrifices, Keith knows this. But he doesn’t want to be shut out. “Then from now on, you don’t make decisions that affect my team without talking to me first.”

“Okay,” Shiro readily agrees.

His steps wind forward until he drops down onto the bed beside Shiro, his side immediately warmed by the line of heat from Shiro’s body. He can’t help the way his knee knocks into Shiro’s leg, that addictive spark of touch. “I do understand the importance of what you’re trying to do. But I want at least two days a week with guaranteed airspace for my team to train.” Shiro opens his mouth to speak, but Keith rushes to continue, “You and I both know you can’t push Pidge to do this 24/7. She’s already fraying at the edges. And if you want Hunk and Allura’s time too, then they’ll need breaks as well.”

“You…” Shiro swallows, tries again. “You make a reasonable case for your team. I’m really sorry, Keith.”

“Will you make sure it happens?” he insists.

“Yes,” Shiro quietly says. “I’ll make it happen. You have my word.”

“Good.” Something in Keith finally relaxes, and it’s only when the tension seeps from his limbs and leaves a weary soreness in its wake, does he realize how on edge he’s been. “Good.”

After that, he doesn’t know where to go. His prior anger is a slowly fading perfume in the air. The aftermath feels too delicate. _They_ feel too fragile.

“I still need to change,” Shiro says.

“Yeah.”

When Keith doesn’t move, Shiro does, standing and moving to the small wardrobe to retrieve a freshly pressed uniform. Keith watches the lines of his back shift beneath his tank. “You don’t have to stay, Keith.” He can sense the walls going back up with each word. “I can meet you back on the bridge.”

The thought that they would simply return to something even less than what they were before is unbearable.

He rises, drawing up behind Shiro and sliding his arms around Shiro’s waist, laying his head in the space between his shoulder blades. “ _Don’t_ shut me out either,” he warns just as fiercely.

At first, Shiro tenses, spine growing rigid. Then, by degrees, the muscles become soft and pliant, curving back into Keith even as Keith molds himself into him. An arm comes to rest over Keith’s arm, their fingers wind and become entwined together.

 

_____

 

When they step off the Atlas and into Capital City, they are Earth’s Admiral and Voltron’s Black Paladin, flanked by Allura, Coran, and Romelle. It's a patchwork job as far as veneers go, a thin coating of plaster slapped over some new ugly cracks, but Keith has faith they can fix those eventually, someday when they're not having to be the Assembly's dancing monkeys again.

Councilor Nethra stands at the forefront of a party of delegates to greet them, and if she seems surprised by Keith’s appearance, she doesn’t betray it, merely smiling warmly at them both. “Fleet Admiral, Black Paladin, Princess Allura, welcome back to Olkarion.”

“Thank you for having us, Councilor,” Allura says warmly.

“Apologies for undoubtedly being one of the last to arrive,” Shiro adds. “It’s my fault, I’m afraid.”

“None are needed, I can assure you. Your tour has been well publicized. I should think the Assembly would be more than understanding of your schedule.”

Shiro quirks a brow. “Really.”

Councilor Nethra’s smile turns sly. “They understand that the meeting cannot begin without you, at least.”

Shiro smirks. “Then by all means, let’s not keep them a tick longer.”

“Olkarion’s certainly come a long way, hasn’t it?” Coran remarks.

He’s not wrong. Free from Galra occupation, there’s a newfound sense of peace on the planet. It’s in the way birdsong drifts in the air. The way a gentle warm breeze tugs at Keith’s hair. Olkarion’s sun is more like a pleasantly warm bath lapping at his skin rather than the the harsh burning light that batters the desert at home. It casts long solemn shadows across the walkway from the landing pad as they move towards a tall, elegant structure made of equal parts glass, some kind of metal, and massive tree vines.

“This is the Voltron Federation’s new headquarters,” Councilor Nethra informs them.

“It’s beautiful,” Romelle says, eyes wide with awe.

“How often does the Assembly meet?” Keith asks.

“There are four primary conventions in a deca-phoeb, but the Assembly can be called for other serious matters. These attacks from the witch have certainly warranted frequent attention.”

“Is that what today’s meeting is about?”

Councilor Nethra gives Shiro a surprised look. “You haven’t informed him?”

“No,” Shiro says, giving Keith a contrite look that Keith consciously lets slide for now. “There wasn’t time. I’m going to ask the Assembly to form a united coalition when we move on Haggar. I asked Allura, Romelle, and Coran here to speak on behalf of the Alteans.”

Allura nods. “They’re just as much a victim of Haggar’s manipulations as others have been. It’s my hope we can entreat the Assembly to help us save an entire race of people.”

Keith flinches, recalling the last Altean whose life he ended, Allura’s pleas for him not to ringing in his ears. In the end, she understood why it had to be done, but he knows it hurt her all the same. “That seems pretty reasonable. It wouldn’t be the first time we worked together on multiple fronts. Is that such a hard ask?”

“You would be surprised,” Councilor Nethra says. “Since many planets have achieved a state of relative peace and stability, they are hesitant to, as we say, kick the teleltree’s nest.”

“Hmmph, so much for gratitude,” Coran mutters under his breath.

“But Haggar’s attacks are only increasing in frequency,” Keith points out. “The longer they go on, the higher the likelihood it will be one of their planets that gets targeted next.”

Shiro and Councilor Nethra share a look.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just tempted to sit back and let you do all the talking,” Shiro tells him, a much-missed gleam of pride shining in his eyes. “You pretty much have all the main points covered.”

“We might just make a politician out of you yet,” Councilor Nethra adds.

Keith flushes. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

They pass under a wide arch to enter the building itself, and Keith can barely tell they’re indoors at all. The walls give off a cool, verdant scent. The many large windows let the sun spill into the atrium.

In stark contrast, before them lies a set of closed doors. Keith can pick up on the din of conversations stirring behind them. He braces himself for the face to face confrontation with the people who’ve all but demanded his head on a silver platter these past weeks.

At first when Councilor Nethra opens the doors, he can’t make out much. The room is noticeably darker inside. There’s just a sense of _vastness_ , echoes and reverberations. Gradually, details start coming into relief: a circular room with multiple tiers of seating and a circling mezzanine overhead. It’s utterly packed with Federation representatives, and they’re all looking at them.

“Members of the Assembly.” Although Councilor Nethra’s doesn’t so much as raise her voice, a hush immediately falls over the room. “The session shall now convene at the request of Earth’s representative, Fleet Admiral Shirogane.”

He can practically see Shiro draw up his Statesman's mask. “Thank you, Councilor, members of the Assembly. I appreciate you taking the time to hear my request.”

As Allura, Coran, and Romelle locate places to sit among the crowd and Shiro steps forward to address the room, Keith finds himself drifting towards the edges, happier to blend in with the shadows until he's needed. It affords him the opportunity to read the room, scrutinizing the crowd of faces for any he recognizes from his last encounter.

“I come before you today to ask members of the Assembly if they will stand with Earth and Voltron when the time comes to take action against Haggar's forces. Though the Galra Empire led by Zarkon no longer exists today, that does not mean the danger is now over. As many of you are aware, much of the atrocities committed on behalf of the Galra Empire can be traced, in no small part, to this being. I can personally attest to the horrors she has committed against myself and others. I’m sure so can many of you. So long as Haggar remains free to manipulate, corrupt, and destroy, then the universe will never be truly safe.”

Keith hears it before he sees, barely a whisper of movement, as a dark shape cuts through the crowd, leaving confusion stirring in its wake. He frowns, wondering how a representative could be this riled up so soon, before he’s struck with an overwhelming sense of wrongness.

As if sensing Keith's notice, the shadow moves swiftly and purposefully, now outright leaping over the heads of the crowd, invoking surprised outrage.

Heading straight for—”Shiro, watch out!”

Amidst the alarmed shouts, Shiro’s eyes widen as the shadow springs from the crowd wielding a familiar looking spear, moving to intercept the lethal tip of the weapon with his cybernetic hand before it can pierce his chest.

The creature, no, the Altean, Keith can see in the spotlight—male, pointed ears, colorful markings—is strong, straining against the best efforts of Shiro’s prosthetic hand. Shiro grits his teeth, shaking with exertion. Allura and Romelle throw themselves forward, only to be forcefully rebuffed by a precise kick and punch, knocking them back into the crowd.

Then the Altean grins as the scythe begins emanating a dreaded purple glow.

Shiro yelps as he collapses to his knees, the light in his arm flickers wildly before shorting out completely and dropping lifelessly to the ground, leaving him exposed.

Keith’s bayard manifests in his hand, cool and solid. He shakes out his wrist and lunges forward, swinging his arm back, sword extended.

“Wait, please don’t kill him!” Allura screams.

He falters, sword frozen in its arc. A mistake.

The Altean spies Keith out of the corner of his eye and pivots.

“Keith, no!”

At first, he can’t understand what’s happening until he looks down and sees the spear piercing his abdomen. There’s blood staining the entry point like a halo. The spear only brightens in its menacing purple, extending out towards him like grasping fingers.

It’s not that his vision starts to tunnel, it’s everything, all his senses, his sense of self. Blood and breath and thought feel like they’re being siphoned out of him, skin and hair and bones and lifeforce drying up into brittleness, cracking, threatening to shatter into dust. _Quintessence_ , he thinks. He’s being drained. It hurts.

Maybe, maybe it’s Shiro lurching up, Keith’s bayard in hand, remaining arm swung back. He's a contrast of black and white, his expression ferocious and terrified in equal measure.

It’s the last coherent thought Keith has. Everything darkens at the edges and smears into blurry shapes of color. Sounds wash out into a loud roaring in his ears. He can’t breathe. He can’t—

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: [futuredescent](http://www.twitter.com/futuredescent)


End file.
